If  than  apt  fcarpawad  fey  a  fpiead 
Right  waiaasa  shall  ha  fee 
To  reaJ  1  -  net  ta  lend, 


rn  to  me 


Not  that  imparted  knowledge  doth 
Diminish  learning's  store; 


But  books,  jl  fin when  often  lent 
Return  ,t(/  mP  no  more. 


L 


Go.  then,  my  book,  for  friendship's  sake 
Instruct,  amuse  -  and  be 
A  treasm-e  to  my  friend;-  then  oaks 
A  quick  return  to  me. 


Marguerite  L.  Bamberger 
36  Test  74th  Street 
New  York,  New  York. 


DUKE  UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 

Gift  of 

UajigcuuXii  Bambe/igeA 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/aredeadalive01ride 


One  of  the  Most  Remarkable  Pictures  of  Levitation  Ever 
Published 

The  illustration  shows  the  medium  floating-  in  the  air.  Among  those  in 
the  circle  are  Drs.  Murani,  Patrizi  and  Cipriani. 


ARE  THE 

DEAD  ALIVE? 

The  Problem  of  Physical  Research  that  the 
World’s  Leading  Scientists  Are  Trying  to 
Solve,  and  the  Progress  They  Have  Made 


By  FREMONT  RIDER 


With  Statements  of  tlieir  Personal  Belief  by 


Sib  Oliver  Lodge 
Count  Leo  Tolstoi 
Db.  Cesaee  Lombboso 
Dr.  V.  Maxwell 
Pbofessob  William  Baebett 
William  T.  Stead 


Andrew  Lang 
Sir  William  Crookes 
Dr.  Charles  Richet 
De.  Filippo  Bottazzi 
Camille  Flammarion 
Professor  William  James 


And  Others 


NEW  YORK 

B.  W.  DODGE  &  COMPANY 

1909 


Copyright,  1908-09,  by 

THE  DELINEATOR 


Copyright,  1909,  by 

B.  W.  DODGE  &  COMPANY 

Registered  at  Stationers'  Hall ,  London 
( All  Rights  Reserved) 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


V 


QLa  ffij)  Wits 


PREFACE 


Modern  science  is  making  great  strides  forward  to¬ 
ward  the  solving  of  the  problems  which  have  ever  most 
troubled  humanity.  Materially,  we  are  coming  into 
the  enjoyment  of  many  such  solutions;  spiritually,  we 
are  making  but  the  first  ragged  breaches  in  a  hitherto 
impregnable  fortress. 

“In  science,  the  great  held  for  new  discoveries  ”  says 
Prof.  William  James,  “is  alzvays  the  unclassified  resid¬ 
uum.  Round  about  the  accredited  and  orderly  facts 
of  every  science  there  ever  floats  a  sort  of  dust-cloud 
of  exceptional  observations,  of  occurrences  minute  and 
irregular  and  seldom  met  with,  which  it  always  proves 
more  easy  to  ignore  than  to  attend  to.  ..  .  Only  the 
born  geniuses  let  themselves  be  worried  and  fascinated 
by  these  outstanding  exceptions,  and  get  no  peace  till 
they  are  brought  within  the  fold.  Your  Galiloes,  Gal- 
vanis,  Fresnels,  Purkinjes  and  Darwins  are  alzvays  get¬ 
ting  confounded  and  troubled  with  insignificant 
things.  .  . 

It  is  in  this  “ dust-cloud  of  exceptional  observations” 
floating  around  the  science  of  psychology  that  the  stu¬ 
dents  of  psychical  research  have  groped  forward,  blind¬ 
ly  but  carefully,  to  an  increasingly  firm  hold  of  a  few 
fundamental  facts.  Ghosts,  spirit  rappings,  materiali¬ 
zations,  table  levitations,  trance  speaking  and  writing, 

’James:  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  299,  300. 

vii 


PREFACE 


viii 

telepathy,  clairvoyance — these  formed  no  immediately 
attractive  field  for  scientific  investigation.  Every  one 
of  these  subjects  has  been,  arid  is,  so  permeated  with 
fraud  that  with  most  of  them  there  is  the  gravest  doubt 
if  so  much  as  one  genuine  example  ever  occurred.  Yet 
a  few  keen-eyed  and  clear-headed  investigators  have 
braved  ridicule  and  indifference,  and  assert  that  they 
have  found  beneath  a  tremendous  accretion  of  error 
a  nucleus  of  truth. 

To  present  this  nucleus  as  clearly  as  he  may  is  the 
author’s  whole  purpose  here.  He  presents  no  theories, 
and  takes  no  side,  but  tries  only  to  give  a  selection  of 
typical  observed  facts  and  certain  unbiased  inferences 
which  may  logically  be  drawn  from  them.  If,  having 
read  the  book,  the  reader  is  able  to  class  him  definitely 
as  either  a  believer  or  a  disbeliever  in  spiritualism,  the 
author  will  have  failed  in  his  purpose;  for  he  has  en¬ 
deavored  to  give  an  impartial  presentation  of  a  sub¬ 
ject,  tangled  perhaps  more  than  any  other,  with  con¬ 
flicting  theories  and  obscured  with  the  grossest  fraud 
and  the  most  deep-rooted  prejudice  both  pro  and  con. 

With  no  subject  so  much  as  with  spiritualism  would 
illiteracy  and  ignorance  seem  easily  able  to  speak  with 
authority;  certainly  in  no  other  subject  are  usually 
clear-minded  people  carried  to  such  childish  credulity 
on  the  one  hand,  or  absurdly  indefensible  denial  on  the 
other. 

But  the  phenomena  which  have  converted  to  psychi- 
cism  the  greatest  scientists  of  Europe,  and  are  now 
creating  widespread  comment  in  every  intelligent  cen¬ 
ter  of  the  globe,  are  not,  we  must  remember,  the  credu¬ 
lous  mingling  of  hysteria,  darkness  and  fraud  which 
we  commonly  associate  with  spiritualism ;  they  are 


PREFACE 


ix 


facts  of  cold  daylight,  things  of  the  laboratory, 
weighed,  measured,  dissected,  counted,  by  the  exact 
methods  of  calculating,  unsympathetic  science. 

Of  course,  Crookes,  the  inventor  of  the  Crookes 
tube ;  Curie,  the  discoverer  of  radium;  Lombroso,  the 
founder  of  the  science  of  criminology ;  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  the  eminent  biologist;  Morselli,  the  psycholo¬ 
gist,  and  their  several  hundred  brother  scientists,  may 
be  very  much  mistaken  in  what  they  say  they  have  dis¬ 
covered.  That,  the  author  will  not  pretend  to  decide ; 
but  surely,  what  they  consider  zvorthy  of  credence  on 
such  a  vital  subject  is  at  least  worthy  of  our  serious 
consideration. 

The  past  year  has  seen  an  important  renaissance  of 
interest  in  psychical  research.  But  even  in  the  Hood 
of  spiritualistic  books  making  their  appearance,  there 
zvould  seem  to  be  need  of  a  book  making  an  attempt, 
not  to  add  to,  but  to  sum  up  past  achievement.  When 
these  articles,  in  a  much  abbreviated  form,  first  ap¬ 
peared  in  The  Delineator,  under  the  same  caption,  Are 
the  Dead  Alive?  they  called  forth  a  flood  of  letters 
from  their  readers.  Indeed,  no  subject  introduced 
recently  by  that  magazine  aroused  so  much  earnest 
comment ,  both  of  approval  and  condemnation,  from  so 
many  varied  points  of  view. 

Among  the  hundreds  of  letters  received  were  reports 
of  personal  experiences ;  if  not  corroborative,  at  least 
very  interesting  and  significant.  And  there  were  re¬ 
quests,  too — pathetic  appeals  for  help  from  some  re¬ 
cently  bereaved.  Could  the  writer  tell  them  hozv,  in¬ 
deed,  they  might  know  their  dead  zvere  alive?  Could 
he  show  them  how  to  communicate  with  them ?  Could 
he  “recommend  a  thoroly  reliable  medium”?  No,  alas! 


X 


PREFACE 


he  could  do  none  of  these  things;  and  the  wisest  re¬ 
searcher  in  psychical  science  will  tell  you,  if  he  be  hon¬ 
est,  that  he  cannot. 

For  roe  are,  as  yet,  learning  the  veriest  rudiments  of 
metapsychics,  and  no  man  yet  even  knows  what  or 
when  we  may  know.  All  the  author  would  do  is  to 
light  up  a  little  the  way  already  traversed. 


Glen  T or-on-the-Hudson, 
Dec.  3,  1908. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


One  of  the  most  remarkable  pictures  of  levitation 

ever  published  . Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

An  instantaneous  photograph,  taken  by  M.  de 
Fontenay,  of  table  levitation  produced  by  the 


medium,  Auguste  Politi  .  “  12 

Sir  William  Crookes .  “  22 


Photograph  of  a  table  levitation  with  the  medium 

Eusapia  Paladino  .  “  50 

Camille  Flammarion  .  “  55 

Daniel  Dunglas  Home,  greatest  of  all  so-called 

“physical”  mediums  .  “  61 


Sir  Oliver  Lodge  .  “  72 

Eusapia  Paladino  .  “  75 

Plaster  casts  of  impressions  in  clay,  produced  at  a 

distance  by  an  unknown  force .  “  80 

Lecture-room  of  the  Societe  d’Etudes  Psychiques 

at  Milan  .  “  88 


The  lonely  Isle  Roubaud  in  the  Mediterranean 
where  Eusapia  was  investigated  by  Charles 
Richet  .  “  88 


Dr.  Pio  Foa,  Professor  of  Pathologic  Anatomy, 

University  of  Turin  .  “  98 

Colonel  Albert  de  Rochas,  propounder  of  the 

theory  of  the  “astral  double” .  “  113 

Dr.  Cesar  Lombroso,  Alienist  Professor  of  Psy¬ 
chiatry,  University  of  Turin .  “  120 


m 


xii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

The  famous  Bourne  case  of  dual  personality .  “  136 

The  “Watseka  Wonder,”  the  most  famous 

recorded  case  of  “obsession”  .  “  142 

Frederic  W.  H.  Myers,  formulator  of  the  hypoth¬ 
esis  of  the  “subliminal  self”  .  “  147 

The  famous  Bertha  Huse  case  of  clairvoyance. ...  “  157 

Impression  of  two  clenched  hands  in  clay,  made  at 

a  distance  by  Eusapia  Paladino .  “  164 

William  T.  Stead  .  “  171 

Alleged  genuine  “spirit  photograph” .  “  178 

Fraudulent  “spirit  photograph” .  “  178 

Alleged  photograph  of  an  ancient,  taken  in  Chi¬ 
cago  by  Mr.  Blackwell  .  “  188 

Mr.  Frank  Podmore  .  “  198 

Photographs  showing  the  progression  of  an  al¬ 
leged  “materialization”  .  “  212 

A  typical  table  levitation  with  Eusapia  Paladino  “  240 

Dr.  V.  Maxwell,  an  enthusiastic  psychical 

researcher  .  “  258 

A  typical  example  of  “spirit  writing” : 

I.  The  medium’s  normal  handwriting _  “  266 

II.  Automatic  writing  by  the  medium .  “  276 

III.  Automatic  writing  later  in  the  seance..  “  286 

Mrs.  Leonora  Piper,  of  Arlington,  Mass .  “  291 

Dr.  Richard  Hodgson  .  “  305 

Professor  William  James  of  Harvard  University  “  312 

Handwriting  of  the  medium,  Mile.  Smith,  to  show 
the  difference  between  normal  and  alleged 
“controlled”  writing  .  “  324 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Chap.  I.  Introduction .  1-21 

Introduction,  1 — Is  fraud  an  explanation  of  all  spiritual¬ 
istic  phenomena?  3 — The  strange  phenomena  com¬ 
prised  under  the  heading  “Psychical  Research,”  6 — 
The  phenomena  observed  by  Sir  William  Crookes,  9 — All 
professional  spiritualistic  phenomena  are  permeated  with 
fraud,  14 — Has  science  been  neglecting  a  rich  field  of  in¬ 
quiry?  19 — 

“To  stop  short  in  any  research  that  bids  fair  to  widen 
the  gates  of  knowledge  is  to  bring  reproach  on  science 
.  .  — Sir  William  Crookes,  22. 

Chap.  II.  The  Physical  Phenomena  of 

Spiritualism  .  23- 54 

Mere  prestidigitation  cannot  explain  all  alleged  “spirit 
manifestations,”  25 — The  notable  spiritualistic  investiga¬ 
tion  of  the  London  Dialectical  Society,  27 — “Spirit”  slate¬ 
writing,  32 — The  famous  Zollner  phenomena,  37 — Rap- 
pings:  the  Fox  Sisters,  40 — Are  the  rappings  genuine?  43 
— Table-tipping,  47 — The  researches  of  De  Gasparin: 
What  causes  table-tipping?  50 — 

“That  the  soul  survives  the  body  I  have  not  the  shadow 
of  a  doubt  .  .  .” — Camille  Flarnmarion,  55. 

Chap.  III.  The  Mediumship  of  D.  D.  Home  61-71 

Home’s  levitations,  63 — “Elongation”:  the  heat  phenom¬ 
ena,  67 — 

“I  am  convinced  of  the  persistence  of  human  existence 
beyond  bodily  death  .  .  — Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  72. 

xiii 


XIV 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Chap.  IV.  Eusapia  Paladino:  The  Italian 

Medium  . 73-98 

The  beginning  of  Eusapia’s  mediumistic  career,  75 — The 
downfall  of  Eusapia  in  England,  82 — A  new  series  of 
sittings  in  Genoa,  85 — The  first  Turin  seances,  91 — The 
second  Turin  seances,  95 — 

“I  am  convinced  that  after  death  man  does  not  perish 
entirely  .  .  .” — Botazzi,  99. 

Chap.  V.  The  Later  Mediumship  of  Eusapia 

Paladino  .  101-19 

The  startling  materializations  produced  at  Naples,  106 — Is 
this  psychic  energy  a  form  of  radio-activity?  ill — Eusa¬ 
pia’s  manifestations  and  the  problem  of  the  future  life, 
116 — 

“Spiritualistic  phenomena  are  authentic  .  .  — Cesar 

Lombroso,  120. 

Chap.  VI.  Obsession  and  Dual  Personality 

123-46 

The  hypothesis  of  the  “subliminal  self,”  127 — Cases  of 
dual  personality,  134 — The  remarkable  case  of  Ansel 
Bourne,  136 — The  famous  case  of  the  “Watseka  Wonder,” 
139— 

“Our  records  prove  the  persistence  of  the  spirit  life 
.  .  .” — Frederic  W.  H.  Myers,  147. 

Chap.  VII.  Clairvoyance  and  Clairaudience 

149-70 

Clairvoyance,  152 — The  celebrated  case  of  Bertha  Huse, 
157 — Clairaudience,  161 — What  is  clairvoyance?  163 — Pre¬ 
cognition,  or  prophecy,  167 — 

“I  do  not  believe  the  dead  depart  .  .  .” — William  T. 
Stead,  171. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


xv 


PA  Oil 

Chap.  VIII.  Ghosts .  173-97 

“Spirit  photography,”  177 — The  projection  of  the  “astral 
body”?  184 — Apparitions  of  the  dead,  187 — The  Morton 
“haunting,”  191 — 

“Survival  is  improbable  .  .  .” — Charles  Richet,  198. 

Chap.  IX.  What  Are  Ghosts  ? — “Material¬ 
izations”  .  201-20 

Not  all  “ghosts”  are  subjective,  205 — Do  animals  see 


apparitions?  207 — The  famous  “Katie  King”  materializa¬ 
tion,  217 — 

“The  dead  have  never  really  died  .  .  .” — Alfred  Rus¬ 
sell  Wallace,  221. 

Chap.  X.  Telepathy .  224-49 


Fraudulent  telepathic  phenomena,  227 — Spontaneous  tel¬ 
epathy,  232 — The  proof  of  telepathy,  237 — Telepathic 
hypnosis  and  suggestion,  245 — What  is  telepathy?  248 — 


“We  deal  only  with  presumption  and  prejudices  .  . 

— Andrew  Lang,  250. 

Chap.  XI.  Premonitions .  252-7 

What  is  the  explanation  of  premonitions?  256 — 

“We  are  at  the  dawn  of  a  new  religion  .  .  .” — V. 
Maxwell,  258. 


Chap.  XII.  Mediumship .  261-87 

The  phenomena  of  “automatism,”  266 — Various  phases  of 
motor  automatism,  268 — Rules  for  conducting  mediumistic 
experiments,  272 — Typical  mediumistic  phenomena,  274 — ■ 
Apparently  supernormal  knowledge  displayed  in  medium¬ 
istic  communications,  279 — The  mediumship  of  William 
Stainton  Moses,  282 — 

“No  experimental  proof  of  survival  after  death  will  ever 
reach  an  absolutely  conclusive  scientific  demonstratios 
.  .  .” — Professor  William  Barrett,  288. 


XVI 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE! 

Chap.  XIII.  The  Piper  Case .  291-311 

The  early  phases  of  the  Piper  case,  295 — Mrs.  Piper  is 
investigated  in  England,  299 — The  appearance  of  the  Pel¬ 
ham  “control,”  304 — Pelham  is  displaced  by  the  “imperator 
controls,”  307 — 

“Psychical  Research  has  bridged  the  chasm  .  .  — 

Professor  William  James,  312. 

Chap.  XIV.  Telepathy  vs.  Spiritualism.'  315-40 
The  “telepathic  hypothesis,”  320 — Arguments  for  the  tele¬ 
pathic  hypothesis,  324 — Objections  to  the  telepathic  hypo¬ 
thesis,  326 — Other  arguments  for  spiritualism,  331 — “The 
dramatic  play  of  personality”  in  mediumistic  communica¬ 
tion,  333— 

“I  feel,  I  know  with  certitude  that  in  dying  I  shall  be 
happy  .  .  .” — Count  Tolstoi,  341. 

Chap.  XV.  Conclusion .  343-5° 

Spiritualism  and  the  Bible,  345 — The  difficulty  of  knowing 
of  the  “Other  World,”  347 — The  evidence  of  future  happi¬ 
ness,  350. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTION 

For  countless  centuries  man  has  been  puzzled  by 
certain  occurrences  which  have  not  fitted  into  his  es¬ 
tablished  order  of  things.  Ever  since  the  beginning, 
since  man  groped  forward  into  a  clear  belief  in  the 
future  life,  there  has  existed,  for  instance,  a  concurrent 
belief  that  the  “spirits”  of  the  dead  in  “the  other  world” 
sometimes  came  back  to  earth,  sometimes  communi¬ 
cated  with  those  they  had  left  behind  here.  But 
“ghosts”  were  something  that  modern  science,  as  it 
grew  up  in  the  past  three  centuries,  could  not  explain ; 
so  science  cheerfully  denied  that  they  existed. 

Then  there  were  other  queer  occurrences — you  and  I 
nay  have  had  them — a  friend,  perhaps,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  world,  suddenly  dies,  and  we  wake  up  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  in  a  cold  sweat  with  an  inexplicable 
realization  of  our  friend’s  decease.  We  call  such  a  case 
a  “strange  coincidence.”  At  some  other  time  we  are 
inexplicably  warned  of  a  danger  suddenly  imminent  to 
ourselves,  and  we  call  that  warning  a  “presentiment.” 
Even  two-score  years  ago  there  were  some  people  who 
said  that  these  “coincidences”  and  “presentiments”  were 

1 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


examples  of  a  hitherto  unsuspected  power  that  they 
called  telepathy  or  “thought  transference.”  But  mod¬ 
ern  science  had  no  place  in  its  scheme  of  things  for 
telepathy,  so  again  it  cheerfully  denied  that  the  alleged 
instances  really  occurred. 

About  the  middle  of  the  last  century  there  appeared 
a  new  class  of  phenomena,  in  some  respects  even  more 
bewilderingly  contrary  to  the  existing  laws  of  science. 
Mysterious  rappings  were  heard,  with  no  one  to  make 
them,  and  musical  instruments  played  when  no 
“natural”  explanation  seemed  possible.  Solid  articles, 
especially  tables,  danced  violently  around  and  occasion¬ 
ally  rose  of  their  own  accord  into  the  air  and  floated 
there.  Rarely,  persons  were  “levitated”  in  the  same 
way.  Under  favorable  conditions  forms  were  said  to 
appear  and  disappear  instantaneously.  For  these  and 
other  similar  wonderful  occurrences  science  had  no 
explanation ;  they  were  contrary  to  all  her  established 
laws.  So  science  denied  that  they  ever  occurred ;  and 
those  who  witnessed  them,  in  default  of  any  other 
explanation,  ascribed  them  to  the  work  of  “spirits” 
of  the  dead. 

Of  course,  the  little  genuine  phenomena,  admitting 
that  there  were  some  genuine,  during  this  last  half-cen¬ 
tury  were  imitated  by  a  host  of  charlatans,  self-styled 
“mediums,”  seeking  notoriety  and  fortune  attheexpense 
of  an  easily  duped  public.  As  a  consequence,  spiritual¬ 
ism  fell  into  such  disrepute  that  for  some  time  reputable 
scientists  declined  even  to  investigate  its  pretensions. 
Yet  the  more  thoughtful,  as  the  century  drew  near  its 
close,  argued  that  where  so  much  smoke  was  there 
must  be  a  little  fire.  Thousands  of  people  were  claim¬ 
ing  that  they  had  seen  tables  tipped  and  levitated,  that 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


3 


they  were  daily  receiving  messages  from  friends  who 
had  died.  Ghosts  were  part  of  the  tradition  of  every 
race  on  earth.  Scores  of  respectable  men  and  women, 
contrary  to  their  expectation  and  better  judgment,  ad¬ 
mitted  the  reception  of  telepathic  messages.  Here  were 
facts  that  science,  in  the  opinion  of  some  of  its  leaders, 
could  no  longer  ignore. 

Is  Fraud  an  Explanation  of  all  Spiritualistic  Phenomena? 

The  first  cry  that  the  average  man  makes  in  the 
presence  of  alleged  supernatural  phenomena  is  that  of 
fraud,  and  on  the  whole  he  is  abundantly  justified. 
The  history  of  mediumship  is  one  long,  dishearten¬ 
ing  record  of  fraud  and  exposure.  That  nearly  all 
alleged  spiritualistic  phenomena  are  fraudulent  there 
isn’t  the  slightest  doubt.  That  every  “medium”  who 
in  the  daily  papers  advertises  “advice”  for  sale  is  an 
arrant  rascal  may  be  taken  as  a  foregone  conclusion. 
That  some  of  the  most  noted  mediums,  after  months 
and  sometimes  years  of  scientific  cooperation,  have 
turned  out  to  be  impostors,  is  true. 

But  if  we  immediately  dismiss  in  disgust  the  whole 
subject  we  are  gravely  in  danger  of  the  opposite  error. 
When  Dr.  Thomson  Jay  Hudson,  author  of  The  Law  of 
Psychic  Phenomena,  himself  an  opponent  of  the  ex¬ 
treme  spiritualistic  position  and  an  ethical  writer  of 
weight,  says :  “The  man  who  denies  the  phenomena 
of  spiritualism  to-day  is  not  entitled  to  be  called  a 
skeptic;  he  is  simply  ignorant”;  and  when  the  great 
English  scientist,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  the  co¬ 
discoverer  with  Darwin  of  evolution,  recently  said,  “No 
more  evidence  is  needed  to  prove  spiritualism,  for  no 
accepted  fact  in  science  has  a  greater  or  stronger 


4s 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


array  of  proof  in  its  behalf,”  does  it  not  behoove  the 
man  in  the  street  at  least  to  read  before  scoffing  ? 

Sir  William  Crookes,  once  president  of  the  British 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  one  of 
the  three  or  four  greatest  English  scientists  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century,  the  discoverer  of  the  element  thallium, 
and  inventor  of  the  Crookes  tube  which  made  possible 
the  X-ray,  studied  various  phases  of  mediumship  for 
five  years  with  scientific  care  and  thoroness.  At  the 
end  of  that  time  he  announced  his  conversion  to  spirit¬ 
ualism. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  an  admitted  authority  in  biology 
and  metaphysics,  after  many  years  of  investigation, 
asserts  his  unqualified  belief  in  the  reality  of  telepathy, 
clairvoyance  and  similar  so-called  “occult”  phenomena. 
Professor  Richet,  of  the  University  of  Paris,  and  Pro¬ 
fessor  William  James,  of  Harvard,  perhaps  the  most 
eminent  psychologists  of  Europe  and  America  re¬ 
spectively,  have  devoted  a  large  part  of  their  lives  to 
the  study  of  mediumship. 

These  men  are  not  tyros  in  scientific  research,  or 
liable  to  be  hoodwinked  by  fraud  or  biased  by  personal 
feeling;  they  are  among  the  leaders  in  the  intellectual 
life  of  their  respective  countries.  Nor  do  they  stand 
alone ,  by  any  means.  The  (British)  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  for  thirty  years  the  recognized 
leader  in  the  investigation  of  psychical  phenomena, 
was  founded  in  1882  for  the  express  purpose  of  investi¬ 
gating  “all  that  large  group  of  phenomena  outside  the 
boundaries  of  orthodox  science.”  This  included,  of 
course,  clairvoyance,  rappings,  apparitions,  and  trance 
writing  and  speaking,  as  well  as  the  various  allied 
phenomena  of  hypnotism.  The  society  owed  its  in- 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


5 


ception  to  Professor  W.  F.  Barrett,  of  Dublin,  to  whose 
agitation  its  founding  was  chiefly  due,  and  to  two 
close  friends,  Frederic  W.  H.  Myers  and  Professor 
Sidgwick,  of  Cambridge.  Frederic  Myers  was  a  stu¬ 
dent  of  psychology  of  such  depth  and  breadth  that 
his  monumental  work.  Human  Personality,  may  be 
said  to  have  revolutionized  our  conceptions  of  psychol¬ 
ogy.  Professor  Sidgwick  was  one  of  the  greatest 
philosophical  thinkers  and  writers  of  the  century. 

From  the  beginning  the  investigations  of  the  society 
proceeded  with  scientific  caution.  It  numbered  among 
its  members  the  leaders  of  the  intellectual  world. 
Among  its  presidents  have  been  Arthur  James  Bal¬ 
four,  former  Prime  Minister  of  Great  Britain,  and 
Professor  Balfour  Stewart,  the  eminent  logician. 

Yet  this  society,  after  unmasking  and  discarding  a 
tremendous  accretion  of  fraud  and  error,  finds  enough 
left  to  state  officially  that  the  existence  of  ghosts  and 
the  occurrence  of  telepathy  at  least  are  scientifically 
proved.  And  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  is 
but  a  type  of  similar  societies  in  France,  America*  and 
Italy  which  have  rallied  around  them  the  greatest  in¬ 
vestigators  in  their  respective  countries.  The  men 
mentioned  are  but  a  few  of  those  who  are  professed  be¬ 
lievers  in  the  reality  of  spiritualistic  phenomena. 
Hudson,  Hodgson  and  Stead  in  England ;  Dessoir  in 
Germany;  Hyslop,  Funk  and  Sidis  in  America;  Janet, 
Richet,  Ochorowicz,  Flammarion,  Du  Prel,  De  Gaspa- 
rin,  Maxwell  in  France;  and  Lombroso,  the  great 
criminologist,  Foa  and  Morselli  in  Italy — the  list  of 
names  is  a  long  one. 

In  fact,  there  are  now  in  all  the  world  hut  one  or  tzuo 
scientists  of  the  first  rank  who  deny  the  actual  proha- 


6 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


bility  of  the  future  life;  while  a  large  proportion  claim 
that  this  life  has  been  actually  proved  by  the  occurring 
phenomena  of  spiritualism. 

You  are  probably  surprised  at  this;  you  probably 
never  suspected  the  slightest  favorable  consensus  of 
scientific  opinion  on  this  matter.  All  your  life  you 
have  believed  in  a  future  life,  simply  because  you  have 
— believed ;  but  all  your  life,  perhaps,  too,  you  have 
hoped  and  sought  in  vain  for  proof,  tangible,  visible, 
scientific  proof,  that  your  loved  ones  who  had  gone 
before  were  alive,  that  your  faith  might  be  more  than 
a  faith,  might  be  an  actual  knowledge.  Now  these 
men  assert  that  they  have  found  this  proof.  What  is 
it  they  have  found?  Their  scholarly  attainments  give 
their  discoveries  weight ;  and  you  and  I  at  least  want 
to  know. 

In  the  light  of  the  reports  of  these  eminent  scientists 
who  have  investigated  spiritualism  most  thoroly,  you 
and  I  have  neither  the  right — nor  the  desire  prob¬ 
ably — to  cast  aside  the  whole  subject  without  at  least 
a  cursory  investigation  on  our  own  account.  After 
personal  examination  of  the  facts  and  a  weighing  of 
the  conclusions  derived  from  them,  personal  judg¬ 
ment  may  be  reached  which,  even  if  it  be  adverse,  is 
founded,  not  on  contemptuous  ignorance,  but  on  un¬ 
biased  acquaintance  with  the  facts. 

The  Strange  Phenomena  Comprised  Under  the  Heading 
“Psychical  Research” 

Putting  aside  for  the  moment  all  question  of  a 
future  life,  the  psychical  phenomena  which  we  propose 
to  investigate  are  claimed  by  the  men  who  have  stud¬ 
ied  them  most  to  prove  the  existence  of  very  wonder- 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Y 

ful  abilities,  powers  which  we  are  accustomed  to  think 
utterly  unworthy  of  credence,  and  existing,  if  at  all, 
only  in  the  imagination  or  perhaps  in  a  vague  “other 
world.”  It  is  asserted,  as  we  have  seen,  that  there 
are,  for  example,  really  such  things  as: 

Clairvoyance,  the  ability  to  see  independent  of  the 
eyes,  the  material  organs  of  sight,  to  see  spontane¬ 
ously,  for  example,  what  is  within  a  locked  drawer  or 
what  is  happening  a  thousand  miles  away. 

Clairaudience,  a  similar  ability  of  hearing  inde¬ 
pendent  of  the  material  organs  of  hearing. 

Telepathy,  the  ability  to  communicate  thought  in¬ 
dependent  of  all  physical  senses,  transcending  space, 
giving  the  power  to  read  the  thoughts  of  another,  be  he 
a  few  feet  or  miles  away. 

Prevision,  the  ability  to  transcend  time.  This  may 
be  either  retrocognition,  that  is,  the  power  of  knowing 
what  happened  in  the  past,  or,  more  rarely,  precogni¬ 
tion,  or  prophecy,  of  seeing  take  place  what  has  never 
happened,  but  in  the  future  will  occur. 

Telekinesis,  the  ability  to  affect  physical  objects 
without  contact,  as,  for  example,  moving  chairs  or 
other  objects  when  at  a  distance  from  them. 

Self-projection,  the  ability  of  a  man  to  make  him¬ 
self  visible  at  a  distance. 

These  are  indeed  wonderful  things,  beside  which 
the  greatest  discoveries  of  modern  science  fade  into 
comparative  insignificance.  That  is,  if  they  are  true, 
you  say.  Well,  that  is  exactly  what  we  shall  try  to 
find  out;  but  with  one  qualification.  Our  purpose, 
you  will  remember,  is  to  answer  an  even  larger  ques¬ 
tion,  “Are  the  dead  alive?”  and  we  shall  consider  all 


8 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


psychic  phenomena  from  the  standpoint  of  their  rela¬ 
tion  to  that  question. 

We  shall  very  soon  discover  that  the  phenomena 
divide  themselves  into  two  general  classes.  We  have 
table-tippings,  rappings,  materializations,  knot-tying, 
and  other  “cabinet  manifestations”  which  do  not  give 
alleged  “messages”  from  the  “other  world,”  and,  in¬ 
deed,  may  claim  no  connection  with  it.  These  “phys¬ 
ical  phenomena,”  therefore,  however  interesting  in 
themselves,  are  irrelevant  to  the  main  point  at  issue 
and  may  be  treated  by  us  at  much  less  length. 

We  have,  on  the  other  hand,  table-tippings,  rap¬ 
pings  and  materializations  with  “messages.”  These, 
together  with  apparitions,  auditions,  automatisms  (that 
is,  automatic  trance  speaking  and  writing  through  a 
medium),  are  of  value,  because  they  purport  to  be 
communications  from  discarnate  (deceased)  “spirits.” 
You  will  see  at  once,  then,  that  the  question  of  the 
genuineness  of  these  alleged  spiritual  phenomena  di¬ 
vides  itself  into  two : 

1.  — Do  tables  tip  spontaneously?  Do  human  beings 
and  other  material  bodies  rise  and  float  in  the  air? 
Does  writing  occur  of  its  own  accord  between  sealed 
slates,  etc. — that  is,  do  these  things,  considered  sim¬ 
ply  as  physical  events,  ever  genuinely  happen? 

2.  — Is  the  source  of  the  alleged  messages  in  the 
“other  world”?  All  these  wonderful  things,  in  other 
words,  may  or  may  not  happen ;  even  having  proved, 
if  we  can,  that  they  do  happen,  as  actual,  visible, 
physical  phenomena,  we  have  still  to  prove  their  spir¬ 
itual  origin. 

The  first  question,  as  for  our  purposes  the  less  im¬ 
portant,  we  shall  consider  briefly,  preliminary  to  the 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


9 


second.  To  undertake  the  solution  of  the  latter  at 
all  advisedly,  we  should  know  something  about  the 
allied  phenomena  of  clairvoyance,  telepathy  and  sec¬ 
ondary  personality  and  possession  (the  “possessed  by 
demons”  of  the  Bible).  A  large  field  this,  evidently, 
and  one  of  absorbing  interest ;  what  shall  we  find 
therein  ? 

The  Phenomena  Observed  by  Sir  William  Crookes 

Before  beginning  any  detailed  consideration  of  the 
phenomena  mentioned  by  the  various  writers  quoted, 
it  may  be  well  to  note  a  few  of  the  more  famous  his¬ 
torical  instances — one  or  two  of  the  striking  and  typical 
landmarks,  as  it  were,  of  the  country  we  are  about  to 
traverse. 

To  give  quickly  an  idea  of  the  extent  and  impor¬ 
tance  of  well-authenticated  psychic  phenomena,  I  can 
do  no  better  than  to  review  very  briefly  Crookes’ 
famous  Report  on  the  Investigation  of  Phenomena 
Called  Spiritual.  Weighing  on  the  one  hand  Sir  Will¬ 
iam  Crookes’  position  as  one  of  the  foremost  scientists 
of  Great  Britain,  and  on  the  other  the  extraordinary 
nature  of  the  phenomena  he  describes,  we  may  well 
understand  the  amazed  outcry  that  arose  upon  the 
publication  of  his  report. 

Sir  William  Crookes  was  in  middle  life  when  he 
made  the  researches,  carried  on  over  a  period  of  several 
years,  the  results  of  which  are  embodied  in  his  Report. 
Lest  it  be  thought  that  his  maturer  judgment  repudiated 
the  conclusions  reached  in  those  earlier  days,  I  shall 
quote  his  own  statement  thereon,  delivered  as  part  of 
his  President’s  Address  before  the  British  Association 
for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  in  1898. 


10 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“No  incident  in  my  scientific  career  is  more  widely 
known  than  the  part  I  took  many  years  ago  in  certain 
psychic  researches.  Thirty  years  have  passed  since  I 
published  an  account  of  experiments  tending  to  show 
that  outside  our  scientific  knowledge  there  exists  a 
Force  exercised  by  intelligence  differing  from  the  ordi¬ 
nary  intelligence  common  to  mortals.  This  fact  in 
my  life  is,  of  course,  well  understood  by  those  who 
honored  me  with  the  invitation  to  become  your  presi¬ 
dent.  Perhaps  among  my  audience  some  may  feel 
curious  as  to  whether  I  shall  speak  out  or  be  silent. 
I  elect  to  speak,  altho  briefly.  To  ignore  the  sub¬ 
ject  would  be  an  act  of  cowardice — an  act  of  cowardice 
I  feel  no  temptation  to  commit.  I  have  nothing  to 
retract.  I  adhere  to  my  already  published  statements. 
Indeed,  I  might  add  much  thereto.” 

He  had  said  with  truth :  “There  appear  to  be  few 
instances  of  meetings  held  for  the  express  purpose  of 
getting  the  phenomena  under  test  conditions,  in  the 
presence  of  persons  properly  qualified  by  scientific 
training  to  weigh  and  adjust  the  value  of  the  evidence 
which  might  present  itself.”  He  realized  in  advance 
the  storm  that  would  follow  the  announcement  of  the 
results  of  his  inquiry,  and  his  preliminary  words  are 
a  model  of  judicious  rebuttal. 

“The  phenomena  I  am  prepared  to  attest  are  so 
extraordinary  that  even  now,  on  recalling  the  details 
of  what  I  witnessed,  there  is  an  antagonism  in  my 
mind  between  reason,  which  pronounces  it  to  be  scien¬ 
tifically  impossible,  and  the  consciousness  that  my 
senses,  both  of  touch  and  sight — and  these  corrobo¬ 
rated,  as  they  were,  by  the  senses  of  all  who  were 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  11 

present — are  not  lying  witnesses  when  they  testify 
against  my  preconceptions.” 

With  these  few  words  of  introduction,  Sir  William 
proceeds  to  classify  simply  and  relate  with  the  ut¬ 
most  brevity  a  series  of  the  most  marvelous  phenom¬ 
ena  that — if  bona  fide — it  ever  befell  mortal  man  to 
witness. 

He  states,  for  instance,  that  he  had  observed  “the 
movement  of  heavy  bodies  with  contact,  but  without 
mechanical  exertion”;  that  he  had  heard  during  his 
experiments  raps  and  other  noises  varying  from  “deli¬ 
cate  ticks  as  with  the  point  of  a  pin,”  to  “a  cascade  of 
sharp  sounds  as  from  an  induction-coil  in  full  work” 
and  “detonations  in  the  air” ;  that  he  had  seen  “'move¬ 
ments  of  heavy  bodies  when  at  a  distance  from  the 
medium” ;  that  he  had  watched  “a  chair  move  slowly 
up  to  the  table  from  a  far  corner  when  all  were  watch¬ 
ing  it”;  that  he  had  repeatedly  witnessed  “the  rising 
of  tables  and  chairs  off  the  ground  without  contact  with 
any  person”;  and  even  “the  levitation  of  human  be¬ 
ings”;  that  he  had  seen  “luminous  appearances,”  not 
once,  but  many  times,  and  under  the  most  varied  forms  ; 
that  once  “in  the  light”  he  had  seen  “a  luminous  cloud 
hover  over  a  heliotrope  on  a  side  table,  break  a  sprig 
off,  and  carry  the  sprig  to  a  lady” ;  and  “on  some  occa¬ 
sions  a  similar  luminous  cloud  visibly  condense  to  the 
form  of  a  hand  and  carry  small  objects  about”;  that 
there  had  been  several  times  “appearances  of  hands, 
either  self-luminous  or  visible  by  ordinary  light.”  He 
tells  how  once  “a  beautifully  formed  small  hand  rose 
up  from  an  opening  in  a  dining-table  and  gave  me  a 
flower” ;  and  he  adds : 

“I  have  more  than  once  seen,  first,  an  object  move, 


12 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


then  a  luminous  cloud  appear  to  form  about  it,  and, 
lastly,  the  cloud  condense  into  shape  and  become  a 
perfectly  formed  hand.  At  this  stage  the  hand  is 
visible  to  all  present.  It  is  not  always  a  mere  form, 
but  sometimes  appears  perfectly  life-like  and  graceful, 
the  fingers  moving  and  the  flesh  apparently  as  human 
as  that  of  any  in  the  room.  At  the  wrist  or  arm  it 
becomes  hazy,  and  fades  off  into  a  luminous  cloud. 
I  have  retained  one  of  these  hands  in  my  own,  firmly 
resolved  not  to  let  it  escape.  There  was  no  struggle 
or  effort  made  to  get  loose,  but  it  gradually  seemed  to 
resolve  itself  into  vapor,  and  faded  in  that  manner  from 
my  grasp.” 

These  are  facts,  of  course,  which  seem  utterly  be¬ 
yond  belief,  yet  the  evidence  which  Sir  William  Crookes 
brings  up  in  their  support  is  imposing. 

In  answer  to  the  immediate  accusation  of  trickery, 
we  are  told  that  the  occurrences  took  place  in  the 
writer’s  “own  house,  in  the  light,  and  with  only  private 
friends  present  besides  the  medium,”  and  they  hap¬ 
pened,  not  once,  but  scores  and  hundreds  of  times,  ob¬ 
served  by  many  witnesses,  under  every  test  condition 
that  expert  scientific  knowledge  and  trained  detective 
ingenuity  could  devise. 

Against  the  accusation  of  some  kind  of  a  wholesale 
self-hypnotization  of  the  whole  company,  the  writer 
contends : 

“The  supposition  that  there  is  a  sort  of  mania  or 
delusion  which  suddenly  attacks  a  whole  roomful  of 
intelligent  persons  who  are  quite  sane  elsewhere,  and 
that  they  all  concur,  to  the  minutest  particulars,  in 
the  details  of  the  occurrences  of  which  they  suppose 


An  Instantaneous  Photograph,  Taken  by  M.  de  Fontenay,  of 
Table  Levitation  Produced  by  the  Medium,  Auguste  Politi 

It  is  noteworthy  that  no  scientist  who  has  investigated  instances 
of  levitation  at  first  hand  now  denies  the  reality  of  the  phenomena. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  13 

themselves  to  be  witnesses,  seems  to  my  mind  more 
incredible  than  even  the  facts  they  attest.” 

But  there  is  stronger  evidence.  Sir  William  Crookes 
did  not  rely  alone  upon  human  eyes  and  touch,  only 
too  fallible  as  these  often  are.  The  amount  of  force 
was  measured  with  a  dynamometer ;  the  loss  of  weight 
of  levitated  bodies  registered  on  specially  prepared 
scales ;  the  inexplicable  cold  rush  of  air  which  preceded 
or  accompanied  the  more  startling  phenomena  “lowered 
a  thermometer  several  degrees.”  Dynamometers,  scales, 
thermometers  cannot  be  hypnotized ! 

The  entire  report  is  of  absorbing  interest,  and  the 
more  important  parts  of  it  will  be  considered  at  greater 
detail  later.  The  purpose  here  is  simply  to  show  that 
the  occurrence  of  phenomena  of  a  most  astounding 
character  is  asserted  soberly  and  in  the  most  emphatic 
terms  by  men  of  the  very  highest  scientific  reputation. 

One  more  incident  might  be  quoted,  however,  as 
an  example,  as  Sir  William  Crookes  says,  of  those 
“special  instances  which  seem  to  point  to  the  agency 
of  an  exterior  intelligence.” 

“During  a  seance  with  Mr.  Home,  a  small  lath, 
which  I  have  before  mentioned,  moved  across  the  table 
to  me,  in  the  light,  and  delivered  a  message  to  me  by 
tapping  my  hand,  I  repeating  the  alphabet,  and  the 
lath  tapping  me  at  the  right  letters.  The  other  end 
of  the  lath  was  resting  on  the  table,  some  distance 
from  Mr.  Home’s  hands. 

“The  taps  were  so  sharp  and  clear,  and  the  lath  was 
evidently  so  well  under  control  of  the  invisible  power 
which  was  governing  its  movements,  that  I  said :  ‘Can 
the  intelligence  governing  the  motion  of  this  lath 
change  the  character  of  the  movements  and  give  me 


14. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


a  telegraphic  message  through  the  Morse  alphabet 
by  taps  on  my  hand?’  (I  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  the  Morse  code  was  quite  unknown  to  any  other 
person  present,  and  it  was  only  imperfectly  known  to 
me.)  Immediately  I  said  this,  the  character  of  the 
taps  changed  and  the  message  was  continued  in  the 
way  I  had  requested.  The  letters  were  given  too 
rapidly  for  me  to  do  more  than  catch  a  word  here  and 
there,  and  consequently  I  lost  the  message;  but  I 
heard  sufficient  to  convince  me  that  there  was  a  good 
Morse  operator  on  the  other  end  of  the  line,  wherever 
that  might  be.” 

All  Professional  Spiritualistic  Phenomena  Are  Permeated  With 

Fraud 

We  have  already  noted  that  the  first  cry  that  the 
average  man  makes  in  the  presence  of  alleged  spiritual¬ 
istic  phenomena  is  that  of  fraud ;  and  that  on  the  whole 
he  is  only  too  well  justified.  The  record  of  profes¬ 
sional  mediumship  is  a  disheartening  one.  The  Fox 
sisters,  who  started  the  spiritualistic  furore  in  this 
country  in  the  early  ’qo’s,  confessed  in  after  life  that 
their  “spirit”  rappings  were  made  by  movements  of 
the  knee  joints.  Eusapia  Paladino,  most  famous  of 
all  “physical  mediums,”  was  detected  by  the  committee 
of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  in  the  most 
transparent  fraud.  The  pretensions  of  Mme.  Bla- 
vatsky,  founder  of  the  cult  known  as  the  Theosophical 
Society,  with  thousands  of  adherents,  were  utterly 
riddled  by  Dr.  Richard  Hodgson,  that  sleuth  keen¬ 
eyed  in  detecting  the  shady  weaknesses  of  mediums. 
Slade,  who  completely  mystified  Zollner  and  other 
savants  of  Germany,  met  a  much-merited  Waterloo  at 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  l5 

the  hands  of  the  Seybert  Commission  of  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania. 

In  short,  M.  Flammarion,  the  eminent  French  as¬ 
tronomer  and  psychologist,  says  :  “During  a  period  of 
more  than  forty  years  I  believe  that  I  have  received 
at  my  home  nearly  all  of  them — men  and  women  of 
divers  nationalities  and  from  every  quarter  of  the 
globe.  One  may  lay  it  down  as  a  principle  that  all 
professional  mediums  cheat.” 

The  statement  of  J.  N.  Maskelyne,  thoroly  fa¬ 
miliar  with  all  phases  of  mediumship  as  he  was,  is 
definite  and  unequivocal.  “There  does  not  exist,  and 
there  never  has  existed,  a  professional  medium  of  any 
note  who  has  not  been  convicted  of  trickery  or  fraud.” 
“The  net  result  of  the  investigations  conducted  by 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,”  says  another 
writer  recently,  “was  to  produce  the  conviction  that 
no  results  obtained  thru  professional  mediums  were 
to  be  trusted,  so  long  as  the  conditions  rendered  fraud 
possible;  and,  further,  that  practically  all  professional 
mediums  are  frauds !”  In  short,  the  history  of  medium- 
ship  is  one  continuous  disheartening  record  of  fraud. 

But  if,  as  was  said  before,  we  in  disgust  dismiss  the 
whole  subject,  we  are  gravely  in  danger  of  committing 
an  opposite  error. 

It  is  unfortunately  true  that  the  scientist  is  not  the 
best  observer  or  critic  of  psychic  phenomena.  Mother 
Nature,  who  works  by  invariable  rule  and  never  lies, 
however  much  she  hides,  does  not  begin  to  require  that 
alertness,  detective  skill  and  hard  common  sense  which 
the  investigator  who  is  contesting  the  wiles  of  a  crafty 
charlatan  must  have.  As  Mr.  Bruce  says : 

“Experience  has  demonstrated  that  even  the  best 


16 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


trained  observers  fail  to  perceive  all  that  transpires 
in  the  seance  room,  and  that,  consequently,  the  quick¬ 
witted  medium  of  fraudulent  tendencies  has  ample 
opportunity  to  effect  his  triumphs  by  trick  and  device. 
Conclusive  proof  of  this  was  afforded  by  the  late  S.  J. 
Davey,  a  member  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re¬ 
search,  who,  after  a  little  practice,  succeeded  in  dupli¬ 
cating  the  most  sensational  performances  of  the  ‘slate¬ 
writing’  medium,  Eglinton.  So  successful  was  he 
that  the  English  spiritists  denounced  him  as  a  renegade 
medium.  But  he  frankly  operated  thruout  on  the 
conjurer’s  principle  that  the  hand  is  quicker  than  the 
eye.”1 

But  we  have  testimony  from  other  men,  investiga¬ 
tors  of  a  different  stamp.  Mr.  Hereward  Carrington, 
an  expert  prestidigitator  himself,  after  a  lifelong  study 
of  fraudulent  spiritualistic  phenomena,  says : 

“There  may  be  much  fraud  in  modern  spiritualism ; 
in  fact,  I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  fully  ninety- 
eight  per  cent,  of  the  phenomena,  both  mental  and 
physical,  are  fraudulently  produced ;  but  a  careful 
study  of  the  evidence,  contemporary  and  historic,  has 
convinced  me  that  there  must  have  been  some  genuine 
phenomena  at  the  commencement  of  this  movement, 
in  order  that  the  first  mediums  may  have  copied  them 
by  fraudulent  means,  and  that  a  certain  percentage 
of  the  phenomena  occurring  to-day  is  genuine.  A 
counterfeit  implies  a  genuine,  and  a  shammer  some¬ 
thing  to  sham.” 

M.  Flammarion,  quoted  above,  adds  that  he  unques¬ 
tionably  believes  that,  tho  all  professional  mediums 


’Bruce:  Riddle  of  Personality,  pp.  109-112. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  17 

sometimes  cheat,  “they  do  not  always  cheat;  and  they 
possess  real,  undeniable  psychic  power.”1 

The  author  of  The  Revelations  of  a  Spirit  Medium, 
a  man  who,  as  Mr.  Carrington  says,  .  .  pro¬ 

duced  the  phenomena  that  converted  hundreds  to  the 
belief,  and  who  knows  the  disgusting  details  of  the 
frauds  practiced  from  A  to  Z,  stated  .  .  .  that  he 

himself  was  ‘more  spiritualist  than  anything  else,’  and 
advised  his  readers  to  go  on  investigating,  for  ‘you 
will  find  in  the  chaff  that  is  so  plentiful  some  good 
grains.’  ”2 

And  yet  this  same  writer  had  made  this  sweeping 
statement:  “His  own  career  and  the  fact  that  he  has 
met  no  other  professional  medium,  male  or  female,  in 
his  long  experience  and  extensive  travels,  who  were 
not  ‘crooked,’  leads  him  to  the  conclusion  that  from 
the  professional  you  are  to  expect  nothing  genuine.” 
“Of  all  the  mediums  he  (the  author)  has  met  in 
eighteen  years,  and  that  means  a  great  many,  in  all 
phases,  he  has  never  met  one  that  was  not  sailing  the 
very  same  description  of  craft  as  himself.  Every  one ; 
no  exception.” 

Alfred  Russell  Wallace  declares  that  the  facts  ob¬ 
served  in  the  history  of  spiritualism  “are  incontest¬ 
able”;  and  Dr.  Elliotson,  long  a  determined  opponent 
of  spiritualism,  said  finally:  “I  am  now  quite  satisfied 
of  the  reality  of  the  phenomena.”3 

Mr.  Frank  Podmore,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  monu¬ 
mental  and  scholarly  attack  on  the  whole  spiritualist 


’Flammarion:  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  p.  3. 
’Carrington:  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  338. 
“Wallace:  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  p.  99. 


18 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


position,  sounds  a  note  of  warning  against  an  indis¬ 
criminate  denial  of  all  psychic  phenomena. 

In  other  words,  here,  as  elsewhere  in  human  expe¬ 
rience,  we  must  “prove  (test)  all  things”  and  “hold 
fast  to  that  which  is  good.”  We  must  remember  that 
D.  D.  Home  and  Mrs.  Piper,  whose  performances  are 
in  every  respect  the  most  wonderful  of  all,  have  never 
been  detected  in  the  slightest  suspicion  of  fraud.  And 
they  were  for  many  years  under  the  severest  scrutiny 
of  investigators  trained  for  that  very  work.  All  Mr. 
Carrington’s  shrewd  observation  and  analysis,  laying 
bare  the  thousand  clever  devices  with  which  unscrupu¬ 
lous  mediums  have  hoodwinked  credulous  humanity, 
but  make  more  startlingly  conclusive  the  slender 
section  in  the  back  of  his  book  that  he  believes  are 
“Genuine  Phenomena.” 

In  his  conclusion  he  states  his  position  with  clear¬ 
ness:  “While  sounding  a  timely  warning  ...  by 
thus  calling  the  public  attention  to  the  methods  of 
trickery  at  present  in  vogue,  I  do  not  wish  it  to  be 
understood  that  I  thereby  relegate  the  whole  of  the 
evidence  for  the  supernormal  to  the  waste-basket.  That 
is  precisely  what  I  do  not  wish  to  do  or  lead  others 
to  do.  It  is  because  I  believe  that  there  do  exist  cer¬ 
tain  phenomena,  the  explanations  for  which  have  not 
yet  been  found,  .  .  .  that  I  think  it  necessary  to 

distinguish  those  phenomena  from  the  fraudulent  ‘mar¬ 
vels’  so  commonly  produced,  and  which  are  the  only 
spiritualistic  phenomena  with  which  the  public  is  ac¬ 
quainted.  When  these  shall  have  been  cleared  away, 

.  .  .  the  real,  systematic,  scientific  study  of  psychic 

phenomena  will  have  begun.”1 


'Carrington:  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  pp. 415-6. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


19 


It  is  doubly  unfortunate  that  scientific  men,  as  a 
body,  have  affected  a  lofty  disdain  of  the  whole 
psychic  field,  blind  to  the  fact  that  they  are  missing 
an  exceptional  opportunity  for  opening  up  a  virgin 
territory  of  fabulous  value  to  mankind. 

Has  Science  Been  Neglecting  a  Rich  Field  of  Inquiry? 

Mr.  Myers,  in  a  refreshingly  sane  criticism  of  the 
conservative  stand,  points  out  the  “ever-growing  dis¬ 
like  felt  by  the  votaries  of  advanced  and  established 
sciences  to  the  rude  and  approximate  work  which  has 
been  needed  in  the  infancy  of  every  science,”  adding: 
“Psychical  research  is  the  left  wing  of  Experimental 
Psychology.  It  may  be  argued  that  present  methods 
of  research  are  rather  rash  skirmishings ;  but  surely 
there  is  an  opposite  danger  ...  in  the  temptation 
to  cling  too  exclusively  to  the  safe  methods  of  sciences 
exacter  than  it  [psychology]  can  in  reality  be.  .  .  . 
Men  who  insist  on  electric  lamps  along  their  road  never 
reach  Central  Africa.  .  .  .” 

In  a  masterly  defense  of  his  own  position,  Sir  Will¬ 
iam  Crookes  said :  “My  object  in  thus  placing  on 
record  the  results  of  a  very  remarkable  series  of  ex¬ 
periments  is  to  present  such  a  problem,  which,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Sir  William  Thomson,  ‘Science  is  bound 
by  the  everlasting  law  of  honor  to  face  fearlessly.’  It 
will  not  do  merely  to  deny  its  existence  or  try  to  sneer 
it  down.  Remember,  I  hazard  no  hypothesis  or  theory 
whatever;  I  merely  vouch  for  certain  facts,  my  only 
object  being — the  truth.  Doubt,  but  do  not  deny ;  point 
out,  by  the  severest  criticism,  what  are  considered  fal¬ 
lacies  in  my  experimental  tests,  and  suggest  more  con¬ 
clusive  trials;  but  do  not  let  us  hastily  call  our  senses 


20 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


lying  witnesses  merely  because  they  testify  against 
preconceptions.  I  say  to  my  critics,  Try  the  experi¬ 
ments;  investigate  with  care  and  patience  as  I  have 
done.  If,  having  examined,  you  discover  imposture 
or  delusion,  proclaim  it  and  say  how  it  was  done.  But, 
if  you  find  it  be  a  fact,  avow  it  fearlessly,  as  ‘by  the 
everlasting  law  of  honor’  you  are  bound  to  do.”1 

In  the  introduction  to  his  own  study,  M.  Flammarion 
takes  an  incontrovertible  stand :  “We  are  inclined  to 
smile  at  everything  that  relates  to  the  marvelous,  to 
tales  of  enchantment,  the  extravagances  of  occultism, 
the  mysteries  of  magic.  This  arises  from  a  reason¬ 
able  prudence.  But  it  does  not  go  far  enough.  To 
deny  and  prejudge  a  phenomenon  has  never  proved 
anything.  The  truth  of  almost  every  fact  which  con¬ 
stitutes  the  sum  of  the  positive  sciences  of  our  day 
has  been  denied.  What  we  ought  to  do  is  to  admit 
no  unverified  statement,  to  apply  to  every  subject  of 
study,  no  matter  what,  the  experimental  method,  with¬ 
out  any  preconceived  idea  whatever,  either  for  or 
against.”2 

The  trouble  is  that  your  man  of  science  objects  to 
the  conditions  imposed  by  the  medium,  the  darkened 
room  for  example,  and  the  constrained  position,  which 
often  prevents  anything  like  genuine  investigation.  He 
points  out  that  there  is  a  peculiar,  mysterious  atmos¬ 
phere  in  a  seance  room  which  works  on  the  emotions 
and  unsettles  the  judgment.  He  declines  to  become 
involved  in  any  study  wherein  gross  fraud  has  been 
and  is  so  prevalent ;  and  he  denies  the  existence  of 


’Quoted  in  Flammarion:  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  p.  316. 
'Ibid.,  p.  1. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


21 


any  phenomena  not  reproducible  (as  are  the  phenomena 
of  chemistry,  physics  and  biology)  at  will. 

Of  course,  this  position  is  both  selfish  and  scien¬ 
tifically  indefensible.  We  have  no  more  right  to  in¬ 
sist  that  a  “materialization”  must  take  place  in  daylight 
than  to  insist  that  a  photographic  plate  must  be  de¬ 
veloped  in  daylight.  We  know  nothing  as  yet  regard¬ 
ing  the  laws  of  psychic  phenomena.  We  cannot  dic¬ 
tate  how  they  should  happen ;  we  cannot  reproduce 
them  at  will,  simply  because  we  don’t  know  enough 
about  them ;  and  to  take  such  a  position  is  as  absurd  as 
that  of  the  savant  of  medieval  times  would  have  been 
who  denied  the  existence  of  lightning  because  he  could 
not  manufacture  it  when  he  pleased. 

To  such  an  astounding  and  unequivocal  statement 
as  that  of  Professor  Challis,  Plumierian  professor  of 
astronomy  at  Cambridge  University,  mere  scoffing  is, 
it  seems  to  me,  no  really  adequate  answer. 

“I  have  been  unable  to  resist  the  large  amount  of 
testimony  to  such  facts  [spiritualism]  which  has  come 
from  many  independent  sources  and  from  a  vast  num¬ 
ber  of  witnesses.  ...  In  short,  the  testimony  has 
been  so  abundant  and  consentaneous,  that  either  the 
facts  must  be  admitted  to  be  such  as  are  reported,  or 
the  possibility  of  certifying  facts  by  human  testimony 
must  be  given  up.” 


“TO  STOP  SHORT  IN  ANY  RESEARCH  THAT  BIDS  FAIR 
TO  WIDEN  THE  GATES  OF  KNOWLEDGE  IS 
TO  BRING  REPROACH  ON  SCIENCE.” 

“No  incident  in  my  scientific  career  is  more  widely  known 
than  the  part  I  took,  many  years  ago,  in  certain  psychical 
researches.  Thirty  years  have  passed  since  I  published  an  ac¬ 
count  of  experiments  tending  to  show  that  outside  our  scientific 
knowledge  there  exists  a  Force  exercised  by  intelligence  differ¬ 
ing  from  the  ordinary  intelligence  common  to  mortals.  To 
stop  short  in  any  research  that  bids  fair  to  widen  the  gates 
of  knowledge,  to  recoil  from  fear  of  difficulty  or  adverse  criti¬ 
cism,  is  to  bring  reproach  on  science.  There  is  nothing  for 
the  investigator  to  do  but  to  go  straight  on,  ‘to  explore  up  and 
down,  inch  by  inch,  with  the  taper  of  his  reason;  to  follow 
the  light  wherever  it  may  lead,  even  should  it  at  times  re¬ 
semble  a  will-o’-the-wisp.’ 

********* 
“That  a  hitherto  unrecognized  form  of  force — whether  it  is 
called  psychical  force  or  X-force  is  of  little  consequence — is 
involved  in  these  occurrences  (spiritual  phenomena)  is  not  with 
me  a  matter  of  opinion,  but  of  absolute  knowledge.  The 
nature  of  the  force,  or  the  cause  which  immediately  excites 
its  activity,  forms  a  subject  on  which  I  do  not  at  present  feel 
competent  to  form  an  opinion.” 


— Sir  William  Crookes. 


n 


Sir  William  Crookes 

Perhaps  the  foremost  English  scientist  of  the  latter  nineteenth 
century,  formerly  president  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advance¬ 
ment  of  Science.  His  record  of  mediumistic  phenomena  personally 
observed  is  astounding. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  PHYSICAL  PHENOMENA  OF  SPIRIT¬ 
UALISM 

We  have  already  remarked  how  difficult  it  is  for 
the  average  man,  even  one  trained  in  scientific  obser¬ 
vation,  to  discover  the  fraudulent  devices  of  a  tricky 
medium  with  years  of  sleight-of-hand  experience.  You 
may  watch  the  exhibitions  of  Hermann  and  Kellar, 
knowing  they  are  clever  tricks,  yet  utterly  unable  to 
explain  how  the  result  is  obtained.  Kellar  gave  ex¬ 
hibitions  of  slate-writing  before  the  Seybert  Commis¬ 
sion  which  completely  mystified  them,  yet  he  announced 
beforehand  that  the  phenomena  were  entirely  trickery. 
Dr.  Hyslop  notes  that  often  the  seances  of  mediums  are 
“much  poorer  exhibitions  than  those  of  the  most  ordi¬ 
nary  prestidigitator.”  Yet  they  manage  to  deceive  their 
spectators.  The  amateur  investigator  without  the  least 
experience  confronts  a  man  who  for  years  has  made 
a  lifework  of  producing  illusion,  who  knows  every 
variety  of  trap-door,  secret  catch,  slide,  dummy  appa¬ 
ratus,  concealed  wires,  etc.,  and  every  method  of  using 
them. 

Probably  ninety-eight  per  cent,  of  the  “materializa¬ 
tions”  seen  in  the  seance  room  are  not  even  an  ade¬ 
quate  illusion ;  that  is,  are  such  flimsy  makeshifts  that 
it  seems  as  if  no  normal  human  being  could  be  de¬ 
ceived.  They  are  compounded,  in  fact,  of  a  very 
natural  and  pitiful  longing  to  see,  a  clever  suggestion 

23 


24 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


from  the  medium  that  they  are  seen,  and  a  very  slight 
“ghost”  framework  on  which  both  feelings  are  hung. 

But  against  the  accusation  that  all  his  “physical” 
phenomena  are  fraudulent,  the  spiritualist  brings  up 
one  very  strong  kind  of  testimony,  that  of  the  pres¬ 
tidigitators  themselves.  After  a  seance  with  Alexis, 
the  clairvoyant  medium,  Robert  Houdin,  probably  the 
greatest  of  all  modern  magicians,  wrote : 

“I  have,  therefore,  returned  from  this  seance  as 
astonished  as  it  is  possible  to  be,  and  persuaded  that  it 
is  utterly  impossible  that  chance  or  skill  could  ever 
produce  effects  so  wonderful.”1 

Harry  Kellar,  whose  stage  performances  are  known 
to  thousands  in  this  country,  said  in  a  letter  to  the 
Indian  Daily  News  (Calcutta,  1882),  regarding  the 
mediumistic  performances  of  Mr.  Eglinton : 

“It  is  needless  to  say  I  went  as  a  skeptic,  but  I  must 
own  that  I  have  come  away  utterly  unable  to  explain 
by  any  natural  means  the  phenomena  that  I  witnessed 
on  Tuesday  evening.  .  .  .  After  a  most  stringent 

trial  and  strict  scrutiny  of  these  wonderful  experiences, 
I  can  arrive  at  no  other  conclusion  than  that  there 
was  no  trace  of  trickery  in  any  form,  nor  was  there  in 
the  room  any  mechanism  or  machinery  by  which  could 
be  produced  the  phenomena  which  had  taken  place. 
The  ordinary  mode  by  which  Maskelyne  and  other 
conjurers  imitate  levitation  .  .  .  could  not  pos¬ 

sibly  be  done  in  the  room  in  which  we  were  assem¬ 
bled.”2 

'“Tout  a  fait  impossible  que  le  hazard  ou  l’adresse  puisse 
jamais  produire  des  effets  aussi  marveilleux.”  Quoted  in 
Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  53. 

2Quoted  in  Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  52. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


25 


These  statements,  while  interesting,  are  in  no  way 
conclusive,  however.  We  must  remember  that  Bella- 
chini,  the  noted  conjurer  of  the  Prussian  court,  gave 
Slade  a  similar  endorsement  j1  and  that  the  trickery  of 
this  very  Eglinton  who  puzzled  Kellar  had  been  al¬ 
ready  uncovered  in  England.2  In  other  words,  even 
the  best  magicians  may  not  know  all  the  tricks  of  their 
own  trade,  and  may  be  mystified  just  as  possibly,  even 
if  not  as  easily,  as  ordinary  folk. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  in  fairness  to  the  spiritualist, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  Kellar  states  that  the  alleged 
“explanations”  of  Eglinton’s  performances  would  not 
cover  all  of  them,  and  Bellachini  asserts  positively  of 
Slade :  “I  have  not  in  the  slightest  degree  found  any¬ 
thing  to  be  produced  by  means  of  prestidigitative  mani¬ 
festations  or  by  mechanical  apparatus ;  .  .  .  any 

explanation  of  the  experiments  which  took  place  under 
the  circumstances  and  conditions  then  obtaining  by  any 
reference  to  prestidigitation  is  absolutely  impossible.”® 

It  is  evident  then  that  in  this  direction  we  reach  but 
very  little  solid  footing  either  way. 

Mere  Prestidigitation  Cannot  Explain  All  Alleged  “Spirit 
Manifestations” 

But  any  intelligent  examination  of  spiritualistic  phe¬ 
nomena  soon  brings  us  to  instances  which  mere  trick¬ 
ery  cannot  explain. 

No  hypothesis  of  prestidigitation,  no  matter  how 
cleverly  worked  out,  can,  for  instance,  explain  the  table- 


'Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  54. 

5S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  4,  p.  355. 

"Quoted  in  Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  54. 


26 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


tipping  incident  mentioned  by  Professor  Morgan.  A 
skeptical  friend  present  at  a  seance  was  loudly  scoffing 
at  the  so-called  spirits,  and  daring  them  to  display  their 
powers.  Spontaneously,  without  contact,  the  heavy 
table  around  which  the  experimenters  were  standing 
broke  away  from  them  and  pinned  the  skeptic  against 
the  wall  with  such  force  that  he  cried  for  mercy. 

“A  medium,”  as  Sir  William  Crookes  says  in  his 
famous  report,  cannot,  by  trickery,  “.  .  .  while 

seated  in  one  part  of  the  room  with  a  number  of  per¬ 
sons  keenly  watching  him,  .  .  .  make  an  accor¬ 

dion  play  in  my  own  hand  when  I  hold  it  keys  down¬ 
ward,  or  cause  the  same  accordion  to  float  about  the 
room  playing  all  the  time.  He  cannot  introduce  ma¬ 
chinery  which  will  wave  window-curtains  or  pull  up 
Venetian  blinds  eight  feet  off,  tie  a  knot  in  a  hand¬ 
kerchief  and  place  it  in  a  far  corner  of  the  room,  sound 
notes  on  a  distant  piano,  cause  a  card-plate  to  float 
about  the  room,  raise  a  water-bottle  and  tumbler  from 
the  table,  make  a  coral  necklace  rise  on  end,  cause  a 
fan  to  move  about  and  fan  the  company,  or  set  in 
motion  a  pendulum  when  enclosed  in  a  glass  case 
firmly  cemented  to  the  wall.” 

Trickery  does  not  explain  the  case  noted  of  the 
medium  Meurice  by  Dr.  Maxwell. 

“On  one  corner  there  is  a  statuette  in  porcelain  .  .  . 
five  inches  high.  M.  Meurice  told  me  he  was  going 
to  make  this  statuette  move.  I  stood  near  him,  with 
my  hand  on  his  back ;  I  stooped  down  and  looked  fixed¬ 
ly  and  narrowly  at  the  statuette  during  the  whole  oper¬ 
ation.  M.  Meurice  proceeded  exactly  as  in  the  pre¬ 
ceding  experiments,  and  when  his  hands — joined  to¬ 
gether  at  the  finger-tips — were  at  a  distance  of  six 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


27 


inches  from  the  statuette,  the  latter  swayed,  bent  slow¬ 
ly  forward,  and  fell  over.  I  affirm  most  positively 
that  there  was  no  hair  or  thread  or  normal  link  of 
any  kind  whatsoever  between  the  statuette  and  the 
medium’s  hands.”1 

Trickery  does  not  explain  the  remarkable  series  of 
experiments  carried  on  in  1870  by  the  Committee  of 
the  London  Dialectical  Society. 

The  Notable  Spiritualistic  Investigation  of  the  London 
Dialectical  Society 

The  Dialectical  Society  was  an  association  of  schol¬ 
ars  and  scientists  which  had  been  founded  two  years 
before  with  Sir  John  Lubbock  as  president.  The  com¬ 
mittee  “to  investigate  alleged  spiritual  manifestations” 
consisted  of  twenty-seven  members,  among  them  Al¬ 
fred  Russell  Wallace,  Varley,  the  eminent  practical 
electrician,  and  Professor  Morgan,  the  president  of 
the  Mathematical  Society. 

The  remarkable  nature  of  the  phenomena  observed 
by  the  various  sub-committees  into  which,  for  prac¬ 
tical  working  purposes,  the  larger  committee  resolved 
itself  may  be  judged  by  the  fact  that  the  Report  states 
that  the  following  propositions  “appeared  to  be  es¬ 
tablished”  : 

“1.  That  sounds  of  a  varied  character,  apparently 
proceeding  from  articles  of  furniture,  the  floor  and 
walls  of  the  room  (the  vibrations  accompanying  which 
sounds  are  often  distinctly  perceptible  to  the  touch) 
occur  without  being  produced  by  muscular  action  or 
mechanical  contrivance. 


‘Maxwell :  Metapsychical  Phenomena,  p.  323. 


28 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“2.  That  movements  of  heavy  bodies  take  place 
without  mechanical  contrivance  of  any  kind  or  ade¬ 
quate  exertion  of  muscular  force  by  the  persons  pres¬ 
ent,  and  frequently  without  contact  or  connection  with 
any  person. 

“3.  That  these  sounds  and  movements  often  occur  at 
the  times  and  in  the  manner  asked  for  by  persons 
present,  and,  by  means  of  a  simple  code  of  signals, 
answer  questions  and  spell  out  coherent  communica¬ 
tions. 

“4.  That  the  circumstances  under  which  the  phe¬ 
nomena  occur  are  variable,  the  most  prominent  fact 
being  that  the  presence  of  certain  persons  seems  neces¬ 
sary  to  their  occurrence,  and  that  of  others  generally 
adverse.  But  this  difference  does  not  appear  to  de¬ 
pend  upon  any  belief  or  disbelief  concerning  the  phe¬ 
nomena. 

“That  oral  and  written  evidence  received  by  your 
committee  not  only  testifies  to  phenomena  of  the  same 
nature  as  those  witnessed  by  the  sub-committees,  but 
to  others  of  a  more  varied  and  extraordinary  character. 

“This  evidence  may  be  briefly  summarized  as  fol¬ 
lows  : 

“1.  Thirteen  witnesses  state  that  they  have  seen 
heavy  bodies — in  some  instances  men — rise  slowly  in 
the  air  and  remain  there  for  some  time  without  visible 
or  tangible  support. 

“2.  Fourteen  witnesses  testify  to  having  seen  hands 
or  figures,  not  appertaining  to  any  human  being,  but 
life-like  in  appearance  and  mobility,  which  they  have 
sometimes  touched  or  even  grasped,  and  which  they 
are  therefore  convinced  were  not  the  result  of  im¬ 
posture  or  illusion.^ 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


29 


“Thirteen  witnesses  declare  that  they  have  heard 
musical  pieces  played  upon  instruments  not  manipu¬ 
lated  by  any  ascertainable  agency.  .  .  . 

“5.  Five  witnesses  state  that  they  have  seen  red-hot 
coals  applied  to  the  hands  or  heads  of  several  persons 
without  producing  pain  or  scorching;  and  three  wit¬ 
nesses  state  that  they  have  had  the  same  experiment 
made  upon  themselves  with  the  like  immunity.  .  .  . 

“8.  Three  witnesses  state  that  they  have  been  present 
when  drawings,  both  in  pencil  and  colors,  were  pro¬ 
duced  in  so  short  a  time,  and  under  such  conditions, 
as  to  render  human  agency  impossible. 

“9.  Six  witnesses  declare  that  they  have  received 
information  of  future  events,  and  that  in  some  cases 
the  hour  and  minute  of  their  occurrence  have  been  ac¬ 
curately  foretold,  days  and  even  weeks  before. 

“In  addition  to  the  above,  evidence  has  been  given 
of  trance-speaking,  of  healing,  of  automatic  writing, 
of  the  introduction  of  flowers  and  fruits  into  closed 
rooms,  of  voices  in  the  air,  of  visions  in  crystals  and 
glasses,  and  of  the  elongation  of  the  human  body.”1 

To  appreciate  the  difficulty  of  assuming  the  impli- 
fication  of  fraud  a  sufficient  explanation  of  these  phe¬ 
nomena,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  in  the  words  of 
the  Report: 

“1.  All  of  these  meetings  were  held  at  the  private 
residences  of  members  of  the  committee,  purposely  to 
preclude  the  possibility  of  prearranged  mechanism  or 
contrivance. 

“The  furniture  of  the  room  in  which  the  experiments 


1 Report  on  Spiritualism  of  the  Committee  of  the  Dialectical 
Society,  July  20,  1870. 


30 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


were  conducted  was  on  every  occasion  its  accustomed 
furniture.  The  tables  were  in  all  cases  heavy  dining- 
tables,  requiring  a  strong  effort  to  move  them.  .  .  . 

“The  room,  tables  and  furniture  generally  were  re¬ 
peatedly  subjected  to  careful  examination  before,  dur¬ 
ing  and  after  the  experiments,  to  ascertain  that  no 
concealed  machinery,  instrument  or  other  contrivances 
existed  by  means  of  which  the  sounds  or  movements 
.  .  .  mentioned  could  be  caused. 

“2.  Your  committee  have  avoided  the  employment 
of  professional  or  paid  mediums,  the  mediumship  be¬ 
ing  that  of  members  of  your  sub-committee  [the  prin¬ 
cipal  medium  was  the  wife  of  a  prominent  member  of 
the  Dialectical  Society],  persons  of  good  social  posi¬ 
tion  and  of  unimpeachable  integrity,  having  no  pe¬ 
cuniary  object  to  serve,  and  nothing  to  gain  by  decep¬ 
tion. 

“3.  The  members  of  the  committee  itself  were  men 
of  all  professions,  ingenious  lawyers,  shrewd  business 
men,  skilful  physicians,  practical  scientists.  .  .  . 

About  four-fifths  entered  upon  the  investigation  wholly 
skeptical  as  to  the  reality  of  the  alleged  phenomena, 
firmly  believing  them  to  be  the  result  either  of  im¬ 
posture  or  of  delusion,  or  of  involuntary  muscular 
action.  It  was  only  by  irresistible  evidence,  under  con¬ 
ditions  that  precluded  the  possibility  of  either  of  these 
solutions,  and  after  trial  and  test  many  times  repeated, 
that  the  most  skeptical  of  your  sub-committee  were 
slowly  and  reluctantly  convinced  that  the  phenomena 
exhibited  in  the  course  of  their  protracted  inquiry  were 
veritable  facts. 

“4.  There  were  no  hasty  generalizations  or  in¬ 
sufficient  data.  No  less  than  forty  meetings  were  held 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


31 


and  ‘careful  notes  were  taken  and  signed  for  verifica¬ 
tion  by  all  present.’ 

“5.  There  was  a  minimum  of  chance  for  self-delusion 
or  inadequate  observation.  The  experiments  were 
conducted  in  the  light  of  gas,  except  on  the  few  occa¬ 
sions  specially  noted  in  the  minutes. 

“The  sounds  were  distinctly  audible  to  the  ear,  .  .  . 
the  motions  obvious  to  the  sight.  It  was  not  a  question 
of  doubtful  mental  impression  only,  but  of  actual  meas¬ 
urement.  The  table  and  other  pieces  of  furniture  had 
changed  their  position  by  so  many  inches,  feet,  yards. 

“At  times,”  say  the  authors  of  the  Report  in  closing, 
“we  sat  under  the  table  when  the  motions  and  sounds 
were  most  vigorous.  We  held  the  hands  and  feet  of 
the  psychic.  Our  ingenuity  was  exercised  in  the  in¬ 
vention  and  application  of  tests.  After  trials  often 
repeated  we  were  compelled  to  confess  that  imposture 
was  out  of  the  question.”1 

At  greater  detail,  Mr.  Cox,  in  the  Report  of  the  sub¬ 
committee,  says: 

“The  smaller  furniture  of  the  room  is  frequently  at¬ 
tracted  to  the  place  where  the  psychic  sits.  Chairs  far 
out  of  reach  and  untouched  may  be  seen  moving  along 
the  floor  in  a  manner  singularly  resembling  the  motion 
that  may  be  observed  in  pieces  of  steel  attracted  by  a 
magnet,  which  rise  a  little,  fall,  move  on,  stop,  until 
fully  within  the  influence  of  the  magnetic  force,  and 
then  jump  to  the  magnet  with  a  sudden  spring.  .  .  . 

Nor  is  this  phenomena  at  all  dubious  to  the  spectator. 


1 Report  of  the  Committee  on  Spiritualism  of  the  Dialectical 
Society.  Comment  by  Mr.  Edw.  Cox,  F.R.G.S. 


32  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

However  it  may  be  done,  the  fact  is  indisputable  that  it 
is  done.”1 

And,  lest  all  this  fail  to  be  conclusive,  read  the  com¬ 
mittee’s  summary  of  the  results  of  its  work : 

“The  motions  were  witnessed  simultaneously  by  all 
present.  They  were  matters  of  measurement,  and  not 
of  opinion  or  fancy.  And  they  occurred  so  often, 
under  so  many  and  such  various  conditions,  with  such 
safeguards  against  error  or  deception,  and  with  such 
invariable  results,  as  to  satisfy  the  members  of  your 
sub-committee  by  whom  the  experiments  were  tried, 
wholly  skeptical  as  most  of  them  were  when  they  en¬ 
tered  upon  the  investigation,  that  there  is  a  force 
capable  of  moving  heavy  bodies  without  material  con¬ 
tact,  and  which  force  is  in  some  unknown  manner  de¬ 
pendent  upon  the  presence  of  human  beings.” 

“Spirit”  Slate-Writing 

The  phenomena  of  slate-writing,  in  spite  or  the  large 
place  it  assumes  in  the  literature  of  spiritualism,  may 
be  dismissed  by  us  with  a  few  words,  and  for  a  very 
simple  reason.  It  is  so  permeated  and  impregnated 
with  gross  fraud  of  a  hundred  varied  kinds  that  there 
is  the  gravest  doubt  whether  there  is  or  ever  was  one 
genuine  case.  Mr.  Carrington  says :  “If  we  were  to 
read  carefully  thru  the  historical  evidence  for  the 
phenomena  of  slate-writing,  we  should  find  it  to  con¬ 
sist  of  one  long  and  practically  unbroken  series  of  ex¬ 
poses  of  fraud  and  trickery,  with  no  real  evidence 
worth  mentioning  for  the  genuine  manifestations  of 


1 Report  of  the  Committee  on  Spiritualism  of  the  Dialectical 
Society. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


33 


any  supernormal  power,  nor  any  indication  of  any  force 
or  agency  whatever  at  work  beyond  the  muscles  of 
the  medium.”1  In  short,  nowhere  has  a  perverted 
human  ingenuity  displayed  itself  to  better  advantage; 
and  the  cleverness  often  shown,  displayed  in  a  better 
cause,  would  inspire  enthusiastic  admiration. 

Slate-writing  phenomena,  it  might  be  explained, 
consists  in  the  appearance  of  writing  on  slates  in  the 
presence  of  a  medium,  the  slates  being  so  sealed  or 
handled  that  it  seems  veritably  impossible  for  any 
“messages”  to  appear  without  the  intervention  of 
spirits. 

The  great  blow  to  the  pretensions  of  slate-writing 
mediums  was  given  by  the  Seybert  Commission.  Henry 
Seybert,  a  spiritualist,  left  a  large  sum  of  money  to 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania  for  the  express  pur¬ 
pose  of  making  an  exhaustive  scientific  investigation 
of  spiritualism.  A  committee  was  appointed,  which 
made  a  perfunctory  Report ,  chiefly  on  the  notorious 
medium,  Slade.  All  the  mediums  examined  were  pro¬ 
fessionals,  little  money  was  expended,  and  the  results 
published  were  so  incomplete  as  to  be  practically  value¬ 
less;  but  the  work  was  abandoned  and  Mr.  Seybert’s 
money  diverted  by  the  university  to  other  uses.  There 
are  few  more  flagrant  examples  of  misappropriation 
of  funds;  and  the  large  amount  of  serious  work  since 
done  and  still  to  do  shows  how  little  excuse  those  in 
authority  had  for  their  action.  The  wrong  is  one,  how¬ 
ever,  which  even  yet  could  and  should  be  righted. 

The  methods  of  producing  fraudulent  slate-writing 
are  multiform. 


‘Carrington:  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  84. 


34 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


In  one  case  “the  medium  had  secreted  uncier  the 
finger-nail  of  his  first  finger  a  minute  fragment  of 
slate-pencil,  and,  when  the  slate  was  in  position  all  he 
had  to  do  was  to  extend  this  finger,  and  to  write  on  the 
under  surface  of  the  slate  whatever  he  desired.  .  .  . 

The  writing  is  scrawling,  but  that  makes  no  difference ; 
the  sitters  are  glad  to  get  it  just  the  same.”1 

In  another  case  the  medium  made  pencils  “by  pul¬ 
verizing  a  slate-pencil  and  mixing  the  powder  thus  ob¬ 
tained  with  ordinary  mucilage,  forming  a  thick  paste. 
This  was  cut  into  small  squares,  about  the  size  of  a 
rice  grain.  These  squares  were  allowed  to  dry  per¬ 
fectly  hard.  .  .  .  When  he  seated  himself  to  give 
the  writings  he  would  deposit  about  a  dozen  of  the 
mucilage  pencils  on  his  left  knee.  .  .  .  He  held 

them  a  few  seconds  in  his  closed  hand  before  sticking 
them  on  his  knee.  This  warmed  them  and  made  them 
sticky,  so  that  they  stuck  where  he  put  them.”2 

Double  slates  with  secret  flaps  and  springs  of  vari¬ 
ous  kinds  are  of  course  common.  In  his  Physical 
Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  the  fascinating  expose  of 
fraudulent  spiritualist  devices  from  which  these  quo¬ 
tations  are  made,  Mr.  Carrington  gives  the  following 
absurdly  simple  yet  very  mystifying  variation: 

“A  book  of  poems  is  handed  to  one  of  the  investi¬ 
gators  with  the  request  that  he  insert,  anywhere  be¬ 
tween  its  pages,  a  paper-knife,  in  order  to  mark  the 
place.  This  is  done.  A  slate  is  then  shown,  blank 
and  cleaned.  The  person  holding  the  book  is  now  re¬ 
quested  to  open  it  and  read  the  first  verse  on  each 


'Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  104. 
2Ibid.,  p.  108. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


35 


page.  Immediately  this  is  done,  the  slates  are  opened, 
and  the  verses  just  read  are  found  copied  between  the 
slates.  ‘There !’  you  will  say,  ‘your  silicate  flap  or 
acid-writing  will  not  work  in  this  case,  for  the  writing 
is  done  after  the  book  is  opened  and  read,  and  this  is 
done  only  after  the  slates  are  fastened  together.’ 

“The  writing  was  done  through  the  flap  method,  just 
the  same !  How  did  the  medium  know  where  the  book 
would  be  opened?  He  did  not  care  where  it  was 
opened,  as  the  book  was  especially  made  for  him,  and 
every  page  was  exactly  alike ,  with  the  exception  of 
the  number!”1 

But  for  downright  cleverness  the  following  trick¬ 
writing  probably  deserves  a  blue  ribbon :  “Examined 
and  marked  slates  .  .  .  are  so  sealed  and  fastened 

together  that  it  would  be  an  utter  impossibility  for 
the  medium  to  open  the  slates  in  the  slightest  degree. 
The  slates  are  free  from  writing  or  preparation  of  any 
kind  when  they  are  placed  together,  and  they  are 
fastened  by  the  sitter  himself,  after  a  small  piece  of 
chalk  has  been  placed  between  them.  Let  us  suppose 
the  sitter  begins  by  screwing  the  frames  of  the  slates 
together  in  several  places,  not  only  at  the  corners. 
.  .  .  But,  further,  the  skeptic  proceeds  to  cover  the 

heads  of  these  screws  with  sealing-wax ;  after  which  he 
proceeds  to  fasten  or  gum  the  frames  of  the  slates 
together  all  the  way  round  with  strips  of  sticking- 
plaster,  securing  these  in  place  and  finally  sealing  the 
frame  together  in  several  different  places,  placing  his 
signet  on  the  seals.  If  he  choose,  he  may  glue  the 
wooden  frames  of  the  slates  together,  also.  The  oper- 


’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  pp.  124-5. 


36 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?, 


ation  has  probably  occupied  many  minutes.  Medium 
and  sitter  now  hold  the  slates  beneath  the  table  be¬ 
tween  them  for  the  space  of,  perhaps,  a  minute.  At 
the  end  of  that  time  the  medium  requests  his  sitter 
to  take  away  the  slates  and  open  them,  or  to  open  them 
there,  as  the  case  may  be.  The  sitter  does  so,  and  is 
amazed  to  find  a  message  on  the  inner  surface  of  one 
of  the  slates.  It  is  very  badly  written,  it  is  true,  but 
the  sitter  is,  rightly  enough,  glad  to  get  writing  of  any 
kind  under  such  conditions. 

“At  first  sight,  such  a  test  would  appear  absolutely 
beyond  the  bounds  of  any  sort  of  trickery.  I  have 
stated  that  the  slates  were  free  from  writing,  as  well 
as  from  preparation  of  any  kind,  when  they  were  put 
together  by  the  sitter,  and  this  is  strictly  the  truth. 
The  writing  was  produced  after  the  slates  were  placed 
together  and  sealed  up  as  I  have  described.  But  this  is 
an  impossibility?  Not  so,  evidently,  since  the  writing 
is  really  there !  Then  it  must  be  genuine !  Thus  rea¬ 
sons  the  skeptic,  and,  indeed,  we  can  hardly  blame  him 
for  his  belief. 

“The  trick,  in  this  case,  is  worked  upon  entirely  dif¬ 
ferent  lines  from  any  test  so  far  described.  I  have 
stated  that  a  piece  of  chalk  (not  slate-pencil)  was 
placed  between  the  slates,  and  it  is  chiefly  in  the  chalk 
that  the  trick  lies.  It  is  not  an  ordinary  piece  of  chalk, 
but  is  made  of  a  compound  of  powdered  chalk,  water, 
glue  and  iron  filings.  These  were  all  blended  together 
and  allowed  to  become  dry  and  hard.  This  is  the 
piece  of  ‘chalk’  placed  between  the  sitters’  slates. 

“Now,  when  the  slates  are  placed  under  the  table, 
the  medium  extracts,  from  his  sleeve  or  elsewhere,  a 
magnet,  and  with  this  he  traces  a  series  of  letters  on 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


87 

the  under  side  of  the  bottom  slate,  in  ‘mirror-writing.’ 
The  iron  filings  in  the  mixture  will  follow  the  magnet, 
and  the  chalk  will  write  on  the  slate  in  the  regular 
manner.  The  medium  locates  the  piece  of  chalk,  in 
the  first  instance,  by  tipping  the  slate  at  an  angle,  so 
that  the  chalk  will  run  into  one  corner.  He  first  of  all 
places  the  magnet  in  that  corner  and  drags  the  bit  of 
chalk  to  the  middle  of  the  slate  before  proceeding  to 
write  out  the  message.”1 

The  recountal  of  all  this  fraudulent  phenomena 
would  have  little  value  except  as  it  shows  the  real  dif¬ 
ficulties  with  which  the  investigator  of  psychic  phe¬ 
nomena  has  to  contend.  As  Mr.  Carrington  well  notes 
regarding  the  above  experiments : 

“The  ingenuity  of  this  test  will  serve  ...  to 
show  the  reader  the  extreme  cunning  of  the  profes¬ 
sional  medium,  and  how  useless  it  is  for  the  average 
individual,  quite  unacquainted  with  even  the  ordinary 
methods  of  trickery  or  the  elements  of  conjuring,  to 
hope  to  cope  with  the  medium  on  his  own  ground,  and 
even  to  beat  at  his  own  game  a  man  who,  naturally 
crafty,  has  made  this  particular  branch  of  deception 
his  life-study.”2 

The  Famous  Zollner  Phenomena 

That  collection  of  incidents  known  to  students  of 
spiritualism  as  the  “Zollner  phenomena,”  striking 
though  they  are,  may  also  be  dismissed  with  but  a  few 
words,  and  for  the  same  reason  as  were  the  slate¬ 
writing  phenomena — the  possibility  or  even  probability 


'Carrington  :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  pp.  134-6. 
'Ibid,  p.  136. 


38 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


of  fraud.  Some  of  them  may  have  been  genuine,  but 
with  a  small  space  at  our  disposal,  and  with  a  wealth 
of  unquestioned  phenomena  sufficient  for  all  our  needs, 
we  need  not  even  discuss  those  upon  which  the  shadow 
of  a  reasonable  doubt  has  been  cast. 

First,  very  briefly  as  to  the  facts  :x  Dr.  Zollner  was 
an  eminent  physicist  and  psychologist  and  of  the  very 
highest  reputation.  The  phenomena  were  observed, 
and  his  own  conclusions  corroborated,  by  three  other 
professors  of  equally  high  rank,  Fechner,  Scheibner 
and  Weber.  The  medium  was  Slade,  the  American. 
The  seances  took  place  at  Zollner’s  house. 

Most  of  the  phenomena  observed,  while  not  spectacu¬ 
lar,  were  more  than  usually  astounding,  from  a  scien¬ 
tific  viewpoint : 

1.  There  were  levitations,  etc.,  in  the  customary 
manner,  but  of  a  remarkable  character. 

2.  Knots  were  tied  in  endless  cords. 

3.  Two  wooden  rings  were  slipped  over  the  leg  of 
a  wooden  table  of  a  greater  circumference  than  the 
rings  themselves. 

4.  Slate-writing  occurred  under  very  careful  test 
conditions. 

In  spite  of  the  circumstantial  evidence  of  genuine¬ 
ness  which  Dr.  Zollner’s  account  bears,  the  whole  is 
vitiated.  Zollner  was  attempting  to  find  corroboration 
for  his  pet  theory  of  “the  fourth  dimension”  (the  sec¬ 
ond  and  third  phenomena  above,  if  genuine,  could  not 
take  place  in  our  world  of  merely  three  dimensions)  ; 
and  his  observation  and  testimony  are  biased  by  that 


Tor  these  see  especially  Zollner’s  own  book,  Transcendental 
Physics. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


39 


idea.  Slade’s  reputation  was  bad ;  the  Seybert  Com¬ 
mission  had  detected  him  in  deliberate  fraud.  In  re¬ 
gard  to  the  corroborative  testimony  of  Zollner’s  asso¬ 
ciates,  Mr.  George  S.  Fullerton  showed  that  “both 
Fechner  and  Scheibner  were  partially  blind  at  the  time, 
and  depended  more  on  what  Zollner  told  them  was 
taking  place  than  on  what  they  could  see  for  them¬ 
selves;  while  Weber  was,  in  many  ways,  an  incompe¬ 
tent  witness  of  such  phenomena.  As  to  Zollner,  the 
chief  narrator,  it  was  found  that  he  was  of  slightly 
unsound  mind  (though  all  his  associates  admitted  that 
this  did  not  impair  his  capacity  as  an  investigator  or 
observer)  ;  .  .  .  that  he  was,  in  many  ways,  an 

incautious  observer  and  believer ;  and,  lastly,  and  by 
far  the  most  important  point  of  all,  is  the  fact  that 
neither  he  nor  any  of  his  three  colleagues  knew  any¬ 
thing  whatever  of  conjuring  or  the  possibilities  of  de¬ 
ception.”1 

In  a  masterly  analysis  of  the  rope-tying  phenomena, 
Dr.  Hyslop  notes  twelve  defects  in  the  evidence,  any 
one  of  which  would  be  “sufficient  to  nullify  its  scien¬ 
tific  character.”2  Mr.  Carrington,  after  a  careful  ex¬ 
amination  of  the  evidence,  is  “convinced”  that  the 
rings  passed  over  the  table  leg  “could  have  been  man¬ 
aged  by  adroit  trickery”  ;3  and  he  even  explains  how 
it  may  have  been  done. 

As  to  the  “broken  screen  incident”  (a  case,  by  the 
way,  which  Zollner  considered  so  conclusive  that  he 
detailed  it  at  great  length),  where  a  strong  wooden 
screen  was  apparently  wrenched  apart  in  the  middle  of 

'See  the  Seybert  Commission  Report,  pp.  104-14. 

2See  Hyslop :  Borderland  of  Psychical  Research,  pp.  232-9. 

'Carrington:  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  31. 


40 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


a  seance  with  a  violent  crack,  falling  in  two  pieces, 
the  screws  and  other  fastenings  being  wrenched  from 
their  sockets,  “I  would  ask,”  says  Mr.  Carrington1 
simply,  “what  proof  have  we  that  this  tearing  apart  was 
not  done  before  the  seance,  and  the  two  parts  merely 
tied  together  by  means  of  a  piece  of  thread,  which 
could  be  pulled  off  later,  allowing  the  two  halves  of 
the  screen  to  fall  apart  as  stated?  There  was  plenty 
of  time  for  Slade  to  ‘fix’  anything  he  liked  before  the 
seance,  from  all  accounts,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the 
reports  which  would  forbid  our  assuming  that  such 
an  interpretation  is  the  right  one.” 

The  miraculous  disappearance  of  the  table  makes 
interesting  reading,  but  the  incident  is  too  ill-attested 
to  warrant  further  mention  here.  Sufficient  now  that, 
on  the  whole,  in  spite  of  the  important  place  the  Zoll- 
ner  case  holds  in  the  history  of  spiritualism,  we  may 
assert  the  evidence  so  defective  as  to  render  it  for 
our  purposes  unworthy  of  careful  consideration. 

Rappings:  The  Fox  Sisters 

A  special  interest  attaches  to  the  phenomena  of  rap¬ 
pings,  because  with  them  modern  spiritualism  took  its 
birth. 

There  are  many  now  alive  who  remember  the  early 
days  of  the  Fox  manifestations,  for  it  was  as  recently 
as  March,  1848,  that  Miss  Kate  Fox,  a  nine-year-old 
girl  in  a  farmer’s  family  at  Hydesville,  a  little  village 
in  central  New  York,  imparted  the  astounding  infor¬ 
mation  that  she  was  in  communication  with  the  dead. 
It  was  some  time  before  her  hard-headed  and  skeptical 


’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  27. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


41 


family  became  convinced  that  any  intelligence  directed 
the  mysterious  loud  knockings  with  which  the  house¬ 
hold  was  annoyed.  Soon,  however,  the  signals  were 
translated.  They  declared  that  “a  murdered  man  was 
buried  in  the  cellar  of  the  house ;  it  indicated  the  ex¬ 
act  spot  in  the  cellar  under  which  the  body  lay;  and 
upon  digging  there,  at  a  depth  of  six  or  seven  feet, 
considerable  portions  of  a  human  skeleton  were  found. 
Yet  more,  the  name  of  the  murdered  man  was  given, 
and  it  was  ascertained  that  such  a  person  had  visited 
that  very  house  and  had  disappeared  five  years  before, 
and  had  never  been  heard  of  since.  The  signals  fur¬ 
ther  declared  that  he,  the  murdered  man,  was  the  sig¬ 
naler  ;  and  as  all  the  witnesses  satisfied  themselves  that 
the  signals  were  not  made  by  any  living  persons,  or  by 
any  assignable  cause,  the  logical  conclusion  .  .  . 

was  that  it  was  the  spirit  of  the  murdered  man,  how¬ 
ever  improbable  and  absurd  that  might  seem.”1 

The  fame  of  the  two  sisters,  Margaret  and  Kate  (for 
both  seemed  to  have  developed  this  unknown  power), 
was  noised  abroad  locally.  The  neighbors  came  skep¬ 
tical,  heard  and  saw,  and  were  converted. 

Soon  after  a  visit  was  made  to  Rochester,  but  the 
report  of  the  miraculous  doings  of  the  sisters  had  pre¬ 
ceded  them,  and  the  ability  accompanied  them.  More 
or  less  violent  accusations  of  imposture  were  met  with 
a  readiness  to  undergo  the  most  searching  tests  that 
the  skeptics  could  devise.  Three  consecutive  commit¬ 
tees  of  townspeople  were  appointed,  examined  the  phe¬ 
nomena  thoroly,  and  arrived  finally  at  the  same  con- 


'YVallace :  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  p.  151. 


42 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


elusion — that  the  phenomena  observed  were  certainly 
supernormal. 

“The  last  and  most  skeptical  committee  reported 
that  they  had  heard  sounds,  and  failed  utterly  to  dis¬ 
cover  their  origin.  They  had  proved  that  neither  ma¬ 
chinery  or  imposture  had  been  used,  and  their  ques¬ 
tions,  many  of  them  being  mental,  were  answered  cor¬ 
rectly.  .  . 

A  more  striking  development  soon  appeared:  their 
mediumship  became  imparted  spontaneously  to  those 
with  whom  they  came  in  contact.  Mrs.  Fish,  a  married 
sister  of  the  Fox  girls,  living  in  Rochester,  was  the 
first  to  develop  the  new  power.  Kate  Fox  visited 
Auburn,  near  by,  and  the  result  was  another  crop  of 
incipient  “mediums”  there.  The  movement  spread  like 
wildfire. 

“Sometimes,”  says  a  recent  investigator,  “the  con¬ 
tagion  was  conveyed  by  a  casual  visit.  Thus  Miss 
Harriet  Bebee,  a  young  lady  of  sixteen,  had  an  inter¬ 
view  of  a  few  hours  with  Mrs.  Tamlin,  a  medium  of 
Auburn,  and  on  her  return  to  her  own  home,  twenty 
miles  distant,  the  raps  forthwith  broke  out  in  her 
presence.  In  the  course  of  the  next  two  or  three 
years,  indeed,  the  rappings  had  spread  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  Eastern  States.  Thus  a  writer  in 
the  New  Haven  Journal,  in  October,  1850,  refers  to 
knockings  and  other  phenomena  in  seven  different 
families  in  Bridgeport,  forty  families  in  Rochester,  in 
Auburn,  in  Syracuse,  ‘some  two  hundred’  in  Ohio,  in 
New  Jersey,  and  places  more  distant,  as  well  as  in 
Hartford,  Springfield,  Charlestown,  and  elsewhere.  A 


'Wallace :  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  p.  151. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


43 


year  later  a  correspondent  of  the  Spiritual  World 
estimated  that  there  were  a  hundred  mediums  in  New 
York  City,  and  fifty  or  sixty  ‘private  circles’  were 
reported  in  Philadelphia.”1 

The  enthusiastic  spiritualist  must  admit  that  some 
years  later  Kate  Fox  made  what  purported  to  be  a 
confession  of  trickery,  stating  that  the  mysterious 
‘Tappings”  that  had  puzzled  all  investigators  were 
caused  by  voluntary  cracking  of  abnormally  loose  knee 
and  toe  joints.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  opponent 
of  spiritualism  must  admit:  First,  that  some  years 
later,  on  her  death  bed,  she  retracted  this  alleged  con¬ 
fession,  reiterating  the  supernatural  character  of  the 
phenomena  produced  by  her ;  and  second,  that  the  “con¬ 
fession”  comes  very  far  short  of  explaining  all  the 
phenomena  which  occurred. 

So  the  Fox  case  rests  at  present.  At  all  events, 
the  sisters  were  most  directly  instrumental  in  launch¬ 
ing  the  spiritualistic  movement,  and,  tho  later  devel¬ 
oping  other  mediumistic  faculties,  the  phenomena  of 
rappings  are  those  with  which  their  names  are  cftenest 
associated. 

Are  the  Rappings  Genuine? 

But  it  is  impossible  to  dismiss  the  whole  subject  of 
rappings  with  an  airy  wave  of  the  hand :  the  evidence 
is  too  voluminous  and  too  strongly  attested ;  and  even 
with  Miss  Fox  it  is  difficult  to  pass  a  final  and  posi¬ 
tive  opinion.  To  show  what  conflicts  of  testimony 
the  investigator  must  weigh  and  reconcile,  the  com¬ 
ments  of  Sir  William  Crookes  on  her  case  are  in¬ 
structive  : 

“For  several  months  I  enjoyed  almost  unlimited  op- 

’Podmore:  Modern  Spiritualism t  Vol.  I.,  p.  182. 


44- 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


portunity  of  testing  .  .  .  the  phenomena  of  these 

sounds.  With  mediums,  generally,  it  is  necessary  to 
sit  for  a  formal  seance  before  anything  is  heard ;  but 
in  the  case  of  Miss  Fox  it  seems  only  necessary  for 
her  to  place  her  hand  on  any  substance  for  loud  thuds 
to  be  heard  in  it,  like  a  triple  pulsation,  sometimes  loud 
enough  to  be  heard  several  rooms  off.  In  this  man¬ 
ner  I  have  heard  them  in  a  living  tree,  on  a  sheet  of 
glass,  on  a  stretched  iron  wire,  on  a  stretched  mem¬ 
brane,  a  tambourine,  on  the  roof  of  a  cab,  and  on  the 
floor  of  a  theater.  Moreover,  actual  contact  is  not 
always  necessary ;  I  have  had  these  sounds  proceeding 
from  the  floor,  walls,  etc.,  when  the  medium’s  hands 
and  feet  were  held,  when  she  was  standing  on  a  chair, 
when  she  was  suspended  in  a  swing  from  the  ceiling, 
when  she  was  enclosed  in  a  wire  cage,  and  when  she 
had  fallen  fainting  on  a  sofa.  I  have  heard  them  on  a 
glass  harmonicon,  I  have  felt  them  on  my  own  shoulder 
and  under  my  own  hands,  I  have  heard  them  on  a 
sheet  of  paper,  held  between  the  fingers  by  a  piece  of 
thread  passed  thru  one  corner.  With  a  full  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  numerous  theories  which  have  been  started, 
chiefly  in  America,  to  explain  these  sounds,  I  have 
tested  them  in  every  way  that  I  could  devise,  until 
there  has  been  no  escape  from  the  conviction  that  they 
were  true  objective  occurrences,  not  produced  by 
trickery  or  mechanical  means.”1 

These  sounds  are,  as  Sir  William  Crookes  said, 
“noticed  with  almost  every  medium,  each  having  a 
special  peculiarity.”2  This  latter  fact  is  noted  also 

’Crookes:  Notes  of  an  Enquiry  into  the  Phenomena  Called 
Spiritual. — Quarterly  Journal  of  Science ,  Jan.,  1874,  p.  83. 

'Ibid. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


45 


by  Professor  Barrett.  “Not  only,”  he  says,  “do  the 
raps  indicate  that  they  are  governed  by  some  intelli¬ 
gence,  but  the  raps  themselves  are  distinct  and  per¬ 
sonal  in  character,  just  as  handwriting  or  the  touch  of 
varied  individuals  on  a  typewriter  or  on  an  electric 
keyboard  is  different.  Each  individuality  has  his  own 
particular  kind  of  rap.”1 

They  appear,  too,  in  varied  forms  and  in  the  most 
unexpected  places.  M.  Flammarion  notes  the  case  of 
a  Dr.  Maxwell,  whose  mediumistic  friend  produced 
raps  in  restaurants  and  railway  lunch-counters.  These 
were  contrary  to  his  own  desire,  being  so  loud  as  to 
attract  attention  and  even  cause  personal  annoyance. 

Victorin  Joncieres,  the  well-known  composer,  re¬ 
lates  the  following  experience: 

“On  the  next  day,  before  my  departure,  I  went  to 
pay  a  visit  to  M.  X.  He  received  me  in  his  dining- 
hall.  Through  the  large  open  window  a  beautiful 
June  sun  flooded  the  room  with  its  brilliant  light. 

“While  we  were  conversing  in  a  desultory  way,  a 
piece  of  military  music  rang  out  in  the  distance.  ‘If 
there  is  a  spirit  here,’  said  I,  smiling,  ‘it  ought  by 
rights  to  accompany  the  music.’  At  once  rhythmic 
taps,  in  exact  harmony  with  the  double-quick  time, 
were  heard  in  the  table.  The  crackle  of  sounds  in  it 
died  away  little  by  little  in  a  decrescendo  very  skilfully 
timed  to  the  last  vanishing  blare  of  the  bugles. 

“  ‘Give  us  a  fine  tattoo  to  finish,’  said  I,  when  the 
sounds  had  completely  ceased.  The  reply  was  a  series 
of  sounds  like  the  heavy  roll  of  drums,  given  with  such 
force  that  the  table  trembled  on  its  legs.  I  put  my  hand 


JS.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  4,  pp.  34-5. 


46 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


on  it  and  very  plainly  felt  the  vibrations  of  the  wood 
as  it  was  struck  by  the  invisible  force.”1 

Jacolliot,  in  his  Occult  Science  in  India,  tells  of  a 
Hindu  fakir,  on  the  former’s  own  veranda,  who  ex¬ 
tended  both  hands  “toward  an  immense  bronze  vase 
full  of  water.  Within  five  minutes  the  vase  commenced 
to  rock  to  and  fro  on  its  base,  and  approach  the  fakir 
gently  and  with  a  regular  motion.  As  the  distance 
diminished,  metallic  sounds  escaped  from  it,  as  if 
some  one  had  struck  it  with  a  steel  rod.  At  certain 
limes  the  blows  were  so  numerous  and  quick  that  they 
produced  a  sound  similar  to  that  made  by  a  hail¬ 
storm  upon  a  metal  roof.”2 

One  important  question,  to  be  considered  more  fully 
later,  should  be  at  least  mentioned  here:  Are  these 
sounds  governed  by  any  apparent  intelligence? 

The  earliest  Fox  rappings,  as  we  have  noted,  spelled 
out  a  message  regarding  the  body  in  the  cellar — facts 
apparently  known  to  no  living  person.  The  same  is 
noted  by  Professor  Barrett,  M.  Flammarion,  and  many 
other  investigators.  The  immaterial  drummer  obeyed 
the  request  of  M.  Joncieres;  but  Sir  William  Crookes 
notes  that  the  raps  are  “frequently  in  direct  opposition 
to  the  wishes  of  the  medium,”  and  in  Dr.  Maxwell’s 
case  the  noises  displayed  a  most  waggish  perversity. 

“At  a  very  early  stage  of  the  inquiry,”  says  Crookes, 
“it  was  seen  that  the  power  producing  the  phenomena 
was  not  merely  a  blind  force,  but  was  associated  with  or 
governed  by  intelligence ;  thus  the  sounds  to  which  I 
have  just  alluded  will  be  repeated  a  definite  number  of 


‘Flammarion :  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  p.  346. 
’Jacolliot :  Occult  Science  in  India,  p.  231. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


47 


times ;  they  will  come  loud  or  faint,  and  in  different 
places  at  request ;  and,  by  a  prearranged  code  of  sig¬ 
nals,  questions  are  answered  and  messages  given  with 
more  or  less  accuracy.”1 

Table-Tipping 

Of  all  the  physical  phenomena  of  spiritualism,  table¬ 
tipping  (including  loosely  in  that  term  all  forms  of 
movement  of  material  bodies  without  the  exertion  of 
force)  is  perhaps  the  most  common.  For  that  reason 
it  has  been  most  carefully  observed  and  most  widely 
discussed. 

In  the  very  beginning,  whatever  our  presuppositions 
pro  or  con,  or  whatever  explanation  we  may  make  as 
to  reasons  or  causes,  the  fact  that  tables  and  other 
articles  of  furniture  do  under  certain  conditions  move, 
apparently  of  their  own  accord,  must  be  admitted  as 
established. 

The  phenomenon  itself  is  simple.  A  number  of  peo¬ 
ple  sit  around  a  table,  placing  the  tips  of  their 
fingers  lightly  on  the  top.  The  number  of  persons 
in  the  circle,  the  size  or  weight  of  the  table,  darkness 
or  daylight — these  conditions  seem  to  make  very  little 
difference.  After  a  varying  interval  of  anticipation, 
the  table  will  begin  to  tremble  and  finally  to  jump  up 
and  down  with  nervous  little  jerks  or  hops.  Occasion¬ 
ally  its  movements  will  become  violent,  and  the  table 
will  progress  around  the  room  without  help  or  guid¬ 
ance  (voluntary,  at  least)  from  the  experimenters. 
Rarely,  the  table  will  move  and  even  rise  in  the  air, 
apparently  of  its  own  accord,  without  any  visible  con¬ 
tact  whatever. 


’Crookes:  Notes.  Quar.  Jour,  of  Sci.,  Jan.,  1874,  p.  83. 


48 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Now,  as  was  said,  these  facts  are  incontestable.  That 
furniture  does  act  in  the  manner  described  no  scien¬ 
tist,  who  has  examined  the  evidence,  denies.  Mr.  Car¬ 
rington,  tho  a  scathing  critic  of  spiritualism,  admits: 
“There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  large  part  of  the 
[table-turning]  phenomena,  at  least,  are  genuine,  how¬ 
ever  we  may  choose  to  interpret  them.  .  .  .  The 
sole  difficulty  lies  in  the  interpretation  of  the  facts ;  in 
the  explanation  that  is  given  of  the  phenomena  ob¬ 
served.”1 

M.  Flammarion  says :  “For  me  the  levitation  of  ob¬ 
jects  is  no  more  doubtful  than  that  of  scissors  lifted  by 
the  aid  of  a  magnet.”2  Dr.  Marvin,  in  his  attack,  The 
Philosophy  of  Spiritualism,  says:  “The  phenomena 
are  genuine.  The  hypothesis  which  spiritualists  en¬ 
deavor  to  build  on  these  phenomena  is  altogether  an¬ 
other  thing.”  Prof.  W.  F.  Barrett  notes  several  in¬ 
stances  in  his  paper  entitled  On  Some  Phenomena, 
Commonly  Called  Spiritualistic,  Witnessed  by  the 
Author. 

Sir  William  Crookes  calls  “the  movement  of  heavy 
bodies  with  contact,  but  without  mechanical  exertion 
.  .  .  one  of  the  simplest  forms  of  the  phenomena 
observed.  It  varies  in  degree  from  a  quivering  or 
vibration  of  the  room  and  its  contents  to  the  actual 
rising  into  the  air  of  a  heavy  body  when  the  hand  is 
placed  on  it.  The  retort  is  obvious  that  if  people  are 
touching  a  thing  when  it  moves,  they  push  it  or  pull  it 
or  lift  it.  I  have  proved  experimentaly  that  this  is  not 
the  case  in  numerous  instances,  but  as  a  matter  of  evi- 


’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  64. 
’Flammarion :  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


49 


dence  I  attach  little  importance  to  this  class  of  phe¬ 
nomena  by  itself,  and  only  mention  them  as  a  prelim¬ 
inary  to  other  movements  of  the  same  kind,  but  without 
contact.”1 

He  speaks  of  this  class  a  little  later  as  follows: 
“The  instances  in  which  heavy  bodies,  such  as  tables, 
chairs,  sofas,  etc.,  have  been  moved,  when  the  medium 
has  not  been  touching-  them,  are  very  numerous.  I 
will  briefly  mention  a  few  of  the  most  striking.  My 
own  chair  has  been  twisted  partly  round,  while  my 
feet  were  off  the  floor.  A  chair  was  seen  by  all  pres¬ 
ent  to  move  slowly  up  to  the  table  from  a  far  corner, 
when  all  were  watching  it ;  on  another  occasion  an  arm¬ 
chair  moved  to  where  we  were  sitting,  and  then  moved 
slowly  back  (a  distance  of  about  three  feet),  at  my 
request.  On  three  successive  evenings  a  small  table 
moved  slowly  across  the  room,  under  conditions  which 
I  had  specially  prearranged,  so  as  to  answer  any  ob¬ 
jection  which  might  be  raised  to  the  evidence.  I  have 
had  several  repetitions  of  the  experiment  considered 
by  the  committee  of  the  Dialectical  Society  to  be  con¬ 
clusive,  viz.,  the  movement  of  a  heavy  table  in  full 
light,  the  chairs  turned  with  their  backs  to  the  table, 
about  a  foot  off,  and  each  person  kneeling  on  his  chair, 
with  hands  resting  over  the  backs  of  the  chairs,  but 
not  touching  the  table.  On  one  occasion  this  took 
place  when  I  was  moving  about  so  as  to  see  how 
every  one  was  placed.”2  Passing  on  in  his  ascending 
scale  of  apparent  difficulty,  Crookes  makes  the  follow¬ 
ing  interesting  note  on  his  “Class  V”  instances  of  “the 
rising  of  tables  and  chairs  off  the  ground,  without 

'Crookes :  Notes.  Quar.  Jour,  of  Sci.,  Jan.,  1874,  p.  82. 

'Ibid,  p.  84. 


50 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


contact  with  any  person.”  It  answers  a  question  very 
frequently  asked : 

“A  remark  is  generally  made  when  occurrences  of 
this  kind  are  mentioned.  Why  is  it  only  tables  and 
chairs  which  do  these  things?  Why  is  this  property 
peculiar  to  furniture?  I  might  reply  that  I  only  ob¬ 
serve  and  record  facts,  and  do  not  profess  to  enter 
into  the  why  and  wherefore ;  but,  indeed,  it  will  be 
obvious  that  if  a  heavy,  inanimate  body  in  an  ordinary 
dining-room  has  to  rise  off  the  floor,  it  cannot  very 
well  be  anything  else  but  a  table  or  a  chair.  That 
this  propensity  is  not  specially  attached  to  furniture, 
I  have  abundant  evidence ;  but,  like  other  experimental 
demonstrators,  the  intelligence  or  power,  whatever  it 
may  be,  which  produces  these  phenomena  can  only 
work  with  the  materials  which  are  available. 

“On  five  separate  occasions  a  heavy  dining-table 
rose  between  a  few  inches  and  one  and  one-half  feet 
off  the  floor,  under  special  circumstances  which  ren¬ 
dered  trickery  impossible.  On  another  occasion  a 
heavy  table  rose  from  the  floor  in  full  light,  while  I 
was  holding  the  medium’s  hands  and  feet.  On  another 
occasion  the  table  rose  from  the  floor,  not  only  when 
no  person  was  touching  it,  but  under  conditions  which 
I  had  prearranged  so  as  to  assure  unquestionable 
proof  of  the  fact.”1 

The  Researches  of  De  Gasparin:  What  Causes  Table-Tipping? 

Considering  the  phenomena  of  table-tipping  in  some¬ 
what  more  regular  order,  we  will  find  that  the  first, 
and  what  is  still  in  many  respects  the  most  important 


'Crookes:  Notes.  Quar.  Jour,  of  Sci.,  Jan.,  1874,  pp.  84-5. 


Photograph  of  a  Table  Levitation  with  Eusapia  Paladino 

Tables  have  been  levitated  so  many  thousands  of  times  in  perfectly  authenticated  instances  that  denial  of  this 
phenomenon  would  seem  to  be  difficult.  Hundreds  of  photographs,  similar  to  the  above,  have  been  taken  at 
many  places  and  with  various  mediums. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


51 


scientific  investigation  ever  made  was  that  of  Count 
Agenor  de  Gasparin,  at  Valleyres  in  Switzerland,  in 
1853,  formal  report  of  which  was  shortly  after 
published  in  two  imposing  volumes.1  The  phenomena 
were  observed  with  unimpaired  success  under  test 
conditions  of  the  most  stringent  and  varied  kind. 
Tables  tipped,  moved  vigorously,  and  were  levitated 
repeatedly  and  at  will  for  months  and  before  any  one 
who  wished  to  observe.  Careful  record  was  kept,  and 
a  large  amount  of  data  secured.  To  prove  the  absence 
of  contact,  the  top  of  the  table  was  dusted  with  flour 
with  a  bellows,  then  the  heavy  table  was  levitated, 
rising  bodily  into  the  air,  not  once,  but  several  times. 
Afterward  “the  table  was  scrupulously  examined;  no 
finger  had  touched  it,  or  even  grazed  it  in  the  slightest 
degree.”2  At  times  the  tables  displayed  a  most  per¬ 
verse  stubbornness,  refusing  to  stir  in  answer  to  any 
amount  of  waiting  or  coaxing.  At  other  times,  under 
seemingly  identical  conditions,  “they  have  seen  the 
same  table  legs  perform  levitations  that  were  so  free 
and  energetic  that  they  anticipated  the  hands,  got  the 
start  of  the  orders,  and  executed  the  thoughts  almost 
before  they  were  conceived,  and  with  an  energy  well- 
nigh  terrifying.” 

With  Eusapia  Paladino,  most  famous  of  all  “phys¬ 
ical  mediums”  to-day,  table-tipping  is  so  usual  an 
occurrence  as  no  longer  to  excite  even  comment.  But 
her  exploits  are  marvelous  enough  to  receive  later  the 
special  mention  they  deserve. 

1Des  Tables  tournantes,  du  Surnaturcl  en  general,  et  des 
Esprits,  par  le  comte  Agenor  de  Gasparin.  'Paris,  Dentu,  1854. 

2For  a  summary  of  the  experiments  of  De  Gasparin,  see 
Flammarjon’s  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces (  Chap.  VI. 


52 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Before  I  go  further,  however,  I  wish  to  make  what 
may  seem  an  astonishing  statement :  For  the  purposes 
of  our  inquiry  it  does  not  make  one  iota  of  difference 
whether  tables  ever  tipped  or  not.  No  space  would  be 
given  even  to  a  discussion  of  the  phenomena  were  it 
not  that  no  other  one  class  of  facts  bulks  so  largely 
in  the  popular  conception  of  the  methods  of  psychic 
research. 

When  the  phenomena  were  first  observed  they  were 
inexplicable  by  the  forces  of  existing  science.  Science 
being  at  fault,  it  was  the  easiest  thing  to  lay  it  all 
to  “spiritual”  intervention.  When  the  phenomena  at 
last  attracted  the  attention  of  men  of  science,  attempts 
were  at  once  made  with  varying  success  to  enunciate  a 
satisfactory  theory. 

Remember,  I  am  still  speaking  entirely  of  the  “phys¬ 
ical”  aspects  of  the  phenomena,  with  the  movements 
of  bodies  by  an  inexplicable  force.  The  alleged  mes¬ 
sages  rapped  out  by  tables  are  another  matter,  which 
will  be  considered  in  their  proper  place. 

Regarding  table-tipping  phenomena,  science  has 
taken  three  attitudes : 

1.  Scoffing  and  complete  denial.  Forced  from  this 
position  by  the  overwhelming  weight  of  the  evidence 
presented,  it  said : 

2.  That  the  phenomena  were  due  to  “unconscious 
muscular  action.”  This  theory  rests  on  a  foundation 
of  observed  experimentation  and  is  an  adequate  ex¬ 
planation  for  a  good  deal  of  the  simpler  phenomena. 
Professor  Faraday  invented  an  instrument  for  register¬ 
ing  this  unconscious  “push  and  pull”  action  in  indi¬ 
vidual  cases;  “and  Professor  Jastrow  further  con¬ 
clusively  proved,  in  a  careful  series  of  experiments 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


53 


conducted  some  years  ago,  that  not  only  is  this  action 
present  and  operative  in  all  normal  individuals,  but 
that  this  push  and  pull  corresponded  invariably  with 
the  expectation  of  the  sitter,  who  had  his  hands  on  the 
board.”  Not  only  this,  but,  as  Mr.  Carrington  adds, 
“there  is  a  great  deal  of  evidence  that  goes  to  show 
that  this  unconscious  muscular  force  is  frequently 
stronger  and  more  powerful  than  the  individual  could 
consciously  control  or  summon.  ...  At  all  events, 
we  know  that  in  moments  of  extreme  fear  or  excite¬ 
ment,  when  the  conscious  mind  is  largely  in  abeyance, 
many  acts  are  performed  which  would  be  quite  im¬ 
possible  to  the  normal  individual,  being  beyond  his 
normal  muscular  ability.”1 

We  even  have  a  phrase  in  the  melodramatic  novel: 
“With  a  sudden  access  ‘of  superhuman  strength’  the 
hero  (or  heroine)  tore  down  the  barred  door  (or 
severed  the  cable)  with  his  (or  her)  bare  hands”;  or 
performed  some  other  ordinarily  “impossible  feat.” 
The  same  thing  has  been  noted  with  subjects  in  an 
hypnotic  condition. 

This  theory,  however,  failed  utterly,  of  course,  to 
explain  the  levitation  or  movement  of  articles  with¬ 
out  contact.  A  third  hypothesis  was  perforce  formu¬ 
lated: 

3.  That  there  is  some  hitherto  unknown  force  ema¬ 
nating  from  the  human  organism  which  is  capable  of 
influencing  material  bodies ;  and  Professor  Thury,  in  a 
“conscientious  monograph,”  coins  the  word  “psychode” 
for  this  “intermediary  between  the  mind  and  the  body,” 
which  “can  project  itself  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
body.” 


’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  68. 


54 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Little,  however,  has  really  been  accomplished  in 
proof  or  disproof.  Science  generally  accepts  what 
she  can  explain  (table-tipping),  and  flatly  denies  any¬ 
thing  further  (levitation),  an  eminently  safe  but  rather 
illogical  proceeding !  This,  too,  in  defiance  of  the  un¬ 
qualified  assertion  in  the  strongest  terms  of  such  sci¬ 
entists,  writers  and  philosophers,  many  of  them  emi¬ 
nent,  as  Myers,  Lodge,  Aksakof,  Flammarion,  Lom- 
broso,  De  Gasparin,  Richet,  Crookes,  Hyslop,  Thury, 
Porro,  Limoncelli,  Carrington,  Zollner,  Marvin,  Bar¬ 
rett,  Schiaparelli,  Gerosa,  Sully-Prudhome,  Du  Prel, 
Ermacora,  Hodgson,  Ochorowicz,  Morselli,  Bianchi 
and  hundreds  of  other  independent  and  honest  ob¬ 
servers. 

These  men  assert  because  they  have  seen,  tested, 
and  believe  they  have  proved.  Science,  generally,  not 
having  seen,  denies  out  of  hand,  because  the  phe¬ 
nomena  are  inexplicable  and  “impossible.”  The  reader 
in  this  case  must  choose  for  himself. 


Camille  Flammarion 

Noted  as  an  astronomer  and  as  a  writer  and  investigator  of  occult 
phenomena. 


THAT  THE  SOUL  SURVIVES  THE  BODY  I  HAVE  NOT 
THE  SHADOW  OF  A  DOUBT.” 


That  the  Soul  survives  the  destruction  of  the  body  I  have 
not  the  shadow  of  a  doubt.  It  is  not  the  body  which  pro¬ 
duces  life.  It  is  Life  which  organizes  the  body. 

The  purely  mechanical  explanation  of  the  Universe  is  in¬ 
sufficient.  We  live  in  the  middle  of  an  unexplored  world  in 
which  the  psychic  forces  play  a  role  as  yet  but  imperfectly 
understood.  These  forces  are  of  an  order  superior  to  the 
physical  and  mechanical,  generally. 

To  men  familiar  with  the  history  of  Science,  the  attitude 
of  people  who  deny  certain  phenomena  simply  because  they 
are  not  yet  understood  and  explained,  is  simple  folly. 
The  thing  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  naming  “common 
sense”  is  only  an  expression  of  the  state  of  general  ignorance. 
There  are  very  few  people  who  have  the  intelligence  free  and 
broad  enough  to  accept,  without  some  preconceived  idea,  new 
and  unexplained  facts. 

As  for  me,  I  am  only  a  humble  student  in  the  prodigious 
problem  of  the  Universe.  I  search  and  I  commune  with  the 
Sphinx.  “What  are  we?”  We  know,  proof  positive,  scarcely 
more  to-day  than  we  did  in  the  time  when  Socrates  propound¬ 
ed  his  famous  maxim,  Know  Thyself!  It  is  true  that  we  have 
learned  how  to  measure  the  distances  to  the  stars,  we  can 
analyze  the  substance  of  the  sun,  and  weigh  worlds.  Is  the 
study  of  ourselves,  then,  less  interesting  than  that  of  the 
exterior  world?  This  is  not  probable.  But  I  hasten  to  warn 
you  that  I  am  not  wise  enough  to  explain  this  mystery  which 
surrounds  the  problem  of  Life  and  Death. 

I  pass  my  life  in  a  retired  garden  consecrated  to  one  of 
the  Nine  Muses  (Astronomy),  and  in  my  attachment  for  that 
beautiful  Infant  I  seldom  find  time  to  visit  other  Temples. 
It  is  only  at  intervals,  for  the  renewed  vigor  which  the  change 
brings,  and  by  curiosity,  that  I  permit  my  investigations  to 
drift  in  the  direction  of  the  “Unknown  Shore.” 

55 


56 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


In  the  intervals  of  my  more  pressing  work,  during  the  long 
nights  passed  at  the  top  of  my  observatory  in  thought  and 
study,  I  have  always  observed  certain  phenomena,  which 
seemed  to  be  the  action  of  unknown  forces.  Sometimes  they 
seemed  analogous  to  those  which  the  magnetizer  uses  to  put 
his  patient  to  sleep.  Magnetism,  hypnotism — these  are  forces 
but  little  understood,  by  the  way,  even  by  those  who  make 
use  of  them. 

On  other  occasions  it  seemed  to  me  that  these  forces  were 
similar  to  the  action  produced  by  thunder.  And  again  they 
seemed  to  be  forces  distinct  from  all  others,  a  something  which 
nearest  approaches  to  the  human  intelligence.  For  some  years 
I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  referring  to  this  element  as  the 
Psychic  Forces.  In  the  study  of  these  Psychic  phenomena 
we  can  afford  to  brave  the  smiles  of  the  incredulous,  for  this 
touches  the  greatest  problem  of  Humanity — the  problem  of 
Survival. 

If  these  forces  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  are  real, 
then  they  must  be  natural,  since  there  is  nothing  in  Nature 
which  is  not  logical. 

One  thing  is  certain,  there  is  no  effect  without  a  cause.  The 
supernatural  does  not  exist,  and  the  day  of  miracles  is  past. 
It  is  only  by  positive  study  of  effects  that  we  are  able  to 
arrive  at  the  cause. 

One  of  the  first  conclusions  at  which  I  have  arrived  after 
years  of  experimenting  is  that  the  human  being  possesses 
within  himself  certain  fluidic  and  psychic  forces  the  nature 
of  which  is  as  yet  only  imperfectly  understood,  and  that  this 
force  is  capable  of  moving  objects  at  a  distance,  without  con¬ 
tact.  It  is  the  expression  of  our  Will  and  our  desires. 

Man  is  a  double  being,  and  that  double  nature  is  to  himself 
still  a  mystery.  We  think.  But  what  is  a  thought?  No 
one  knows.  We  walk.  But  what  is  the  organic  act?  No  one 
knows.  Tell  me,  he  who  can,  how  a  thought  is  conceived, 
and  where,  and  what  is  the  nature  of  cerebral  action!  It 
is  dangerous  to  believe,  and  it  is  dangerous  not  to  believe,  in 
a  Supreme  Intelligence.  As  to  the  knowledge  of  the  psychol¬ 
ogy  of  the  Soul,  we  are  to-day  where  chemistry  was  in  the 
days  of  Albert  the  Grand.  We  know  nothing!  Your  heart 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  57 

beats  night  and  day.  It  is  a  spring  very  well  wound  up.  But 
who  wound  it? 

What  holds  the  earth  in  space?  The  laws  of  gravitation 
and  energy.  What  is  it  that  kills  in  a  rifle  ball?  Its  speed, 
its  energy,  the  invisible  element  which  exists  everywhere  in 
everything. 

We  know  so  little  of  our  mental  being  that  it  is  impossible 
for  us  to  know  of  what  we  ourselves  are  capable,  and  especially 
in  certain  states  of  unconsciousness.  The  intelligence  which 
directs  us  is  not  always  personal. 

Matter  is  not  in  reality  what  it  seems  to  our  vulgar  senses; 
that  is,  to  our  sight  and  touch.  But  it  is  one  with  energy,  and 
is  only  a  manifestation  of  the  movements,  invisible  and  im¬ 
ponderable.  The  Universe  is  a  vast  dynamo,  and  matter  but 
an  appearance. 

We  are  living  in  the  breast  of  an  unexplored  world  in  which 
the  psychic  forces  play  a  role  as  yet  but  little  understood 
and  appreciated.  We  are,  as  regards  these  phychic  forces, 
in  about  the  position  in  which  Columbus  found  himself  when 
he  first  touched  land  in  the  New  World.  We  are  floating  on 
the  borders  of  a  great  unknown.  We  are  at  the  dawn  of  a  new 
Science,  and  who  can  foretell  its  influence  in  the  world  of 
thought? 

Our  terrestrial  organism  may  be  compared  to  a  harp  with 
only  two  strings — that  of  sight  and  that  of  hearing.  By 
those  two  nerves  only  are  we  capable  of  receiving  sensations. 
Now  there  exists  in  reality  in  Nature  not  two,  but  ten,  a  hun¬ 
dred,  a  thousand  kinds  of  movements. 

Psychical  science  informs  us  that  we  live  in  the  midst  of  a 
world  invisible  to  us,  and  that  it  is  not  impossible  that  there 
exists  also  on  the  earth  beings  absolutely  different  from  our¬ 
selves,  incapable  of  manifesting  themselves  to  us,  except  dimly, 
because  of  our  very  limited  means  or  organs  of  communication. 

The  most  rational  means  which  scientific  men  to-day  possess 
of  studying  this  dim  connection  which  we  have  with  these  un¬ 
known  forces  is  through  the  channel  of  Mediums,  or  sensitives, 
and  this  has  led  to  the  founding  in  all  civilized  countries  of 
the  Societies  of  Psychical  Research.  For  the  thing  dubbed 


58 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“spiritualism”  is  a  science  and  not  a  religion.  It  is  a  science 
of  which  we  know,  as  yet,  only  the  A,  B,  C. 

Scientific  men  of  England,  of  America,  of  Germany,  and  of 
Italy,  who  have  devoted  years  to  the  study  of  the  psychology 
of  “raps,”  and  of  the  existence  of  these  unknown  forces  capable 
of  moving  objects  at  a  distance,  as  a  table  or  a  chair — all  of 
these  men  are  unanimous  in  swearing  to  the  existence  of  these 
phenomena  as  a  fact.  But  no  one  knows  their  mode  of  repro¬ 
duction.  They  exist  as  positively  as  the  phenomena  of  elec¬ 
tricity.  There  is  an  invisible  cause  which  produces  these 
“raps.”  Is  this  cause  within  ourselves  or  outside  of  us?  That 
is  the  question. 

In  experimenting  with  mediums  this  force  which  comes  into 
existence  usually  pretends  to  be  some  reincarnated  spirit  of 
the  dead.  But  if  we  push  our  investigations  and  our  questions 
to  the  end,  these  so  called  spirits  generally  finish  by  answers 
which  would  indicate  that  this  is  an  error.  I  do  not  say  that 
spirits  do  not  exist.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  reason  to  admit 
their  existence,  as  in  the  experiments  I  have  made  it  is  not 
possible  to  eliminate  the  hypothesis  of  their  existence. 

There  is  also  the  possibility  of  the  existence  of  the  Soul  after 
death  without  the  possibility  of  our  being  able  to  communicate 
with  it. 

We  often  take  our  ideas  for  reality.  This  is  a  mistake. 
For  example,  to  us  the  air  is  not  a  solid.  We  pass  through  it 
without  effort.  An  iron  door,  on  the  contrary,  we  find  impene¬ 
trable.  But  with  electricity,  exactly  the  contrary  obtains.  It 
passes  through  iron  and  finds  the  air  an  impenetrable  solid. 
Flesh,  clothes  and  wood  are  transparent  for  the  X-rays,  while 
glass  is  opaque. 

Newton  discovered  that  all  of  the  celestial  Planets  move  as  if 
attracted  and  held  in  space  by  a  common  force.  He  called  it 
gravity.  That  force  was  not  explained  in  his  day,  and,  for 
the  matter  of  that,  it  has  never  been  explained. 

A  medium  places  his  or  her  hand  upon  a  table  and  it  moves. 
But  the  force  which  moves  it  is  unexplained.  Is  it,  then, 
untrue  because  of  that? 

Let  us  remember  that  almost  every  scientific  fact  which 
exists  to-day  has  been  denied. 

Many  objections  have  been  made  because  a  medium  under 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


59 


control  brings  forth  his  best  efforts  in  semi-obscurity.  And  we 
are  bound  to  admit  that  this  is  an  inconvenience  for  the  in¬ 
vestigators.  But  it  is  in  no  way,  to  the  intelligent  mind,  at 
least,  a  suspicious  circumstance.  Try,  if  you  will,  to  develop 
a  photographic  negative  anywhere  except  in  a  dark  room;  or 
to  produce  electricity  in  a  room  the  atmosphere  of  which  is 
saturated  with  humidity.  Light  is  the  natural  medium  for 
producing  certain  effects,  and  it  completely  opposes  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  certain  others.  Prevent,  if  you  can,  light  from 
blackening  iodine,  or  make  it  blacken  lime.  Ask  of  electricity 
why  it  will  pass  instantly  from  one  end  to  another  of  a 
long  wire,  and  then  why  it  refuses  to  pass  through  a  piece  of 
glass  one-eighth  of  an  inch  in  diameter.  Ask  of  night-blooming 
flowers  to  expand  in  the  daytime,  and  of  those  which  open  only 
in  the  sunshine  to  blow  at  night.  Give  me  a  reason  for  the 
diurnal  and  nocturnal  respiration  of  plants.  Why  do  plants 
inhale  oxygen,  and  exhale  carbonic  acid  gas  during  the  night, 
when  they  do  exactly  the  opposite  in  the  sunshine? 

Suppose  some  one  says  he  will  only  believe  in  the  existence 
of  the  stars  when  he  has  seen  them  in  the  daytime.  What 
would  be  thought  of  his  mentality?  But  it  is  useless  to  multi¬ 
ply  examples.  We  might  go  on  indefinitely.  Man  is  only  a 
feeble  atom,  a  speck  lost  in  the  contemplation  of  the  Infinite. 
He  has  thought  himself  capable  to  unravel  the  mystery  of  the 
Universe  when  he  has  not  yet  mastered  the  material  forces 
around  him.  He  has  tried  to  explain  the  grandeur  of  the  skies 
when  he  is  incapable  of  analyzing  the  grain  of  dust  at  his 
feet. 

In  any  case,  if  the  investigations  of  the  Society  of  Psychical 
Research  have  not  yet  given  all  that  people  pretend,  nor  all 
that  it  will  yet  give,  one  is  bound  to  admit  that  it  has  consid¬ 
erably  enlarged  the  nature  of  the  understanding  of  the  quali¬ 
ties  of  the  Soul  and  its  faculties.  It  has  practically  demon¬ 
strated  the  existence  of  the  Soul  as  an  entity,  distinct  from 
the  body. 

Many  other  forces  will  be  discovered  as  we  make  progress 
along  these  lines.  Things  exist  in  the  Universe  of  which 
human  intelligence  has  never  dreamed.  The  earth  turned 
on  its  axis,  and  the  celestial  bodies  moved  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  laws  of  gravitation,  ages  before  we  were  aware  of  it, 


60 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


and  while  we  still  fondly  imagined  the  earth  to  he  the  center 
of  all,  a  fixed  body  with  a  flat  surface.  Terrestrial  magnetism 
belted  the  earth  for  centuries  while  the  Races  of  men  slept  in 
blissful  ignorance  of  the  existence  of  such  a  force.  The  possi¬ 
bilities  of  wireless  telegraphy  were  in  the  electric  currents  then 
as  now.  The  waves  of  the  ocean  lapped  the  shores  in  musical 
cadence  long  before  there  were  human  ears  to  listen  to  them. 
Our  mental  eyes  are  opening  to  the  light  of  the  Creation  but 
slowly. 

And  to  sum  up  my  convictions  as  regards  a  future  existence, 
my  researches  have  brought  me  to  this  conclusion: 

(1)  That  the  Soul  exists  as  a  real  entity,  independent  of 
the  body. 

(2)  It  is  gifted  with  faculties  as  yet  unknown  to  Science. 

(3)  It  can  act  at  a  distance,  without  the  medium  of  the 
Senses. 

There  exists  in  Nature  a  psychic  element  of  variable  activity, 
the  essence  of  which  rests  yet  hidden. 

For  my  own  part,  I  shall  be  content  if  my  work  and  investi¬ 
gations,  extending  now  over  a  period  of  more  than  thirty  years, 
can  help  to  form  a  point  of  departure  for  those  who  shall  come 
after  me. 


—-Camille  Flammarion. 


Daniel  Dunglas  Home 

The  greatest  of  all  so-called  “physical  mediums.”  Altho  his  phe- 
nomena  were  quite  the  most  wonderful  on  record,  he  was  never  once 
so  much  as  suspected  of  fraud. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  MEDIUMSHIP  OF  D.  D.  HOME 

I  have  purposely  reserved  what  is  by  far  the  most 
imposing  group  of  purely  “physical”  phenomena  to 
the  last.  If  the  spiritualist  has  already  convinced  you 
of  the  adequacy  of  his  evidence  for  the  supernormal, 
you  will  at  least  find  an  account  of  the  Home  phe¬ 
nomena  intensely  interesting  reading.  If  you  are  still 
equally  sure,  on  the  contrary,  that  spiritualism  is  mere¬ 
ly  a  gigantic  hoax,  the  Home  phenomena  must  at  least 
make  you  pause  and  reconsider. 

Daniel  Dunglas  Home  is  by  far  the  most  striking 
“physical”  medium  in  the  history  of  spiritualism,  part¬ 
ly  from  the  very  wonderful  nature  of  the  feats  he  per¬ 
formed,  partly  from  the  high  social  and  scientific  rank 
of  the  persons  who  witnessed  and  recorded  his  ex¬ 
ploits,  partly  from  the  fact  that  never  once  in  his 
long  career  was  he  detected  in  or  even  so  much  as 
suspected  of  any  form  of  fraud. 

Scotch  by  birth,  he  came  to  America  while  still 
but  a  child,  and  resided  in  a  small  town  in  Connecticut 
through  youth  and  early  manhood.  Soon  after  the  Fox 
sisters  attracted  the  attention  of  the  curiosity-loving 
public,  Home  found  himself  the  possessor  of  medium- 
istic  ability.  And  it  is  a  noteworthy  testimonial  to 
the  genuineness  of  the  phenomena  produced  by  him, 

61 


62 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


that  his  family  were  so  annoyed  at  times  by  his  medi- 
umistic  rappings  and  other  antics  that  they  turned  the 
boy  out-of-doors.  “It  is  hardly  likely,”  notes  Mr.  Car¬ 
rington,  “that  if  Home  had  control  over  the  phenomena, 
he  would  voluntarily  have  carried  them  to  this  extent.”1 

Becoming  a  convert  to  spiritism  in  1855,  while  still 
a  very  young  man,  he  traveled  abroad  in  the  cause 
in  which  he  was  rapidly  winning  himself  world-wide 
fame.  “Everywhere  he  went  he  scored  distinct  tri¬ 
umphs,  both  as  a  medium  and  as  a  social  favorite.  He 
seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  a  fascinating  personality, 
gaining  with  ease  the  friendship  and  confidence  of  all 
who  came  to  know  him.  Belief  in  the  genuineness  of 
his  pretensions  was  further  strengthened  by  his  per¬ 
sistent  refusal  to  accept  payment  for  his  mediumistic 
performances — a  fact  which,  it  may  incidentally  be 
said,  caused  most  people  to  overlook  the  equally  ob¬ 
vious  circumstance  that  he  none  the  less  owed  his  live¬ 
lihood  almost  entirely  to  his  mediumship,  admirers 
showering  gifts  upon  him  and  frequently  entertaining 
him  as  their  guest  for  months  at  a  time.”2 

His  seances  were  attended  by  nobility  and  even 
royalty,  by  scientists  and  philosophers,  among  the 
latter  Sir  William  Crookes;  and  indeed  the  latter's 
famous  Report  is  based  very  largely  on  phenomena 
observed  with  Home.  Everywhere  he  gave  success¬ 
ful  exhibitions  of  absolutely  inexplicable  phenomena, 
and,  so  far  as  his  health  would  permit — for  he  was 
never  robust — continued  to  do  so  till  the  day  of  his 
death,  some  twenty  years  ago  in  France. 


'Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  373. 

2Bruce :  Riddle  of  Personality,  p.  164. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


63 


With  performances  as  striking  as  those  of  Home, 
the  possibility  of  fraud  must,  of  course,  be  squarely 
faced.  But  the  entire  absence  even  of  suspicion  has 
already  been  noted.  Even  Mr.  Podmore,  who  attempt¬ 
ed  to  explain  every  alleged  spiritualistic  phenomenon 
on  purely  natural  grounds,  is  forced  with  Home  to 
admit  there  is  no  evidence  of  fraud.  Mr.  Carrington, 
who,  as  we  have  seen,  knows  the  shady  side  of  spirit¬ 
ualism  from  A  to  Z,  says:  “So  far  as  it  is  known,  tho 
Home  was  under  far  more  careful  and  prolonged  scru¬ 
tiny  than  any  other  medium,  fraud  was  never  detected 
at  any  of  Home’s  seances,  nor  was  it  even  suspected  on 
any  occasion.  .  .  .  Home  always  sat  in  the  circle,  side 
by  side  with  the  other  sitters,  and  never  made  use  of 
a  cabinet  of  any  sort.  He  also  had  a  great  objection 
to  darkness,  and  insisted  upon  as  much  light  as  possi¬ 
ble  on  all  occasions.  So  far  as  he  (Mr.  Podmore]  was 
enabled  to  ascertain,  there  was  not  indicated  in  the 
records  one  iota  of  evidence  against  Home’s  character. 
‘On  the  other  hand,’  he  says,  ‘the  internal  evidence  of 
the  books  and  narratives  seems  to  afford  good  ground 
for  supposing  that  the  phenomena  were  genuine’  ’n 

Home’s  Levitations 

We  have  already  noted  Sir  William  Crookes’  opin¬ 
ion  of  the  genuineness  of  the  Home  phenomena  in 
general.  If  stronger  testimony  were  possible,  how¬ 
ever,  it  must  be  found  in  his  remarks  upon  Home’s 
levitations : 

“There  are  at  least  a  hundred  recorded  instances  of 
Mr.  Home  rising  from  the  ground,  in  the  presence  of 


’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  pp.  372-3. 


6*4  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

as  many  separate  persons,  and  I  have  heard  from  the 
lips  of  the  three  witnesses  to  the  most  striking  occur¬ 
rence  of  this  kind — the  Earl  of  Dunraven,  Lord  Lind¬ 
say  and  Captain  C.  Wynne — their  own  most  minute 
accounts  of  what  took  place.  To  reject  the  recorded 
evidence  on  this  subject  is  to  reject  all  human  testi¬ 
mony  whatever,  for  no  fact  in  sacred  or  profane  his¬ 
tory  is  supported  by  a  stronger  array  of  proofs.1 

“The  accumulated  testimony  establishing  Mr. 
Home’s  levitations  is  overwhelming,”  says  Sir  William 
Crookes.  “It  is  greatly  to  be  desired  that  some  person, 
whose  evidence  would  be  accepted  as  conclusive  by  the 
scientific  world — if  indeed  there  lives  a  person  whose 
testimony  in  favor  of  such  phenomena  would  be  taken 
— would  seriously  and  patiently  examine  these  alleged 
facts.” 

It  might  be  well  now  to  consider  certain  of  these 
examples  of  alleged  levitation.  Mr.  Carrington’s  note 
regarding  them  is  interesting:  “Incredible  as  it  may 
seem  that  a  human  being  should  be  lifted  off  the 
ground,  and  remain  in  that  position  for  some  time,  in 
opposition  to  the  law  of  gravity,  it  is,  nevertheless,  one 
of  the  best  attested  of  all  the  phenomena  occurring 
in  Home’s  presence,  the  quality  and  quantity  of  the 
evidence  being  both  good  and  abundant.  How  famous 
the  case  is  may  be  gauged  by  the  fact  that  it  is  men¬ 
tioned  in  Brewer’s  Dictionary  of  Miracles,  page  218.”2 

First,  quotations  from  the  account  of  Sir  William 
Crookes  contained  in  his  Report: 

“The  levitation  of  human  beings  .  .  .  has  oc¬ 

curred  in  my  presence  on  four  occasions  in  darkness. 

'The  italics  are  mine. 

’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  378. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


65 


.  .  .  I  will  here  only  mention  cases  in  which  the  de¬ 
ductions  of  reason  were  confirmed  by  the  sense  of  sight. 

“On  one  occasion  I  witnessed  a  chair,  with  a  lady 
sitting  on  it,  rise  several  inches  from  the  ground.  On 
another  occasion,  to  avoid  the  suspicion  of  this  being 
in  some  way  performed  by  herself,  the  lady  knelt  on 
the  chair  in  such  manner  that  its  four  feet  were  visible 
to  us.  It  then  rose  about  three  inches,  remained  sus¬ 
pended  for  about  ten  seconds,  and  then  slowly  descend¬ 
ed.  At  another  time  two  children,  on  separate  occa¬ 
sions,  rose  from  the  floor  with  their  chairs,  in  full  day¬ 
light,  under  (to  me)  most  satisfactory  conditions;  for 
I  was  kneeling  and  keeping  close  watch  upon  the  feet 
of  the  chair,  and  observing  that  no  one  might  touch 
them. 

“The  most  striking  cases  of  levitation  which  I  have 
witnessed  have  been  with  Mr.  Home.  On  three  sepa¬ 
rate  occasions  have  I  seen  him  raised  completely  from 
the  floor  of  the  room.  Once  sitting  in  an  easy-chair, 
once  kneeling  on  his  chair,  and  once  standing  up.  On 
each  occasion  I  had  full  opportunity  of  watching  the 
occurrence  as  it  was  taking  place.”1 

On  another  occasion  Sir  William  wrote :  “The  best 
cases  of  Home’s  levitation  I  witnessed  were  in  my  own 
house.  On  one  occasion  he  went  to  a  clear  part  of 
the  room,  and,  after  standing  quietly  for  a  minute, 
told  us  he  was  rising.  I  saw  him  slowly  rise  up  with  a 
continuous  gliding  movement,  and  remain  about  six 
inches  off  the  ground  for  several  seconds,  when  he 
slowly  descended.  On  this  occasion  no  one  moved 
from  their  places.  On  another  occasion*  I  was  invited 


’Crookes :  Notes.  Quar.  Jour,  of  Sci.,  Jan.,  1874,  p.  85. 


66 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


to  come  to  him,  when  he  rose  eighteen  inches  off  the 
ground,  and  I  passed  my  hands  under  his  feet,  round 
him,  and  over  his  head  when  he  was  in  the  air.  On 
several  occasions,  Home  and  the  chair  on  which  he 
was  sitting  at  the  table  rose  off  the  ground.  This  was 
generally  done  very  deliberately,  and  Home  sometimes 
then  tucked  his  feet  on  the  seat  of  the  chair  and  held 
up  his  hands  in  full  view  of  all  of  us.  On  such  occa¬ 
sions  I  have  gone  down  and  seen  and  felt  all  four  legs 
were  off  the  ground  at  the  same  time,  Home’s  feet 
being  on  the  chair.  Less  frequently  the  levitating 
power  extended  to  those  next  to  him.  Once  my  wife 
was  thus  raised  off  the  ground  in  her  chair.”1 

Even  more  conclusive,  however,  is  the  much-quoted 
account  of  another  levitation  given  in  the  famous 
report  of  the  Master  of  Lindsay  (better  known  as  the 
Earl  of  Crawford)  : 

“I  was  sitting  with  Mr.  Home  and  Lord  Adare,  and 
a  cousin  of  his.  During  the  sitting,  Mr.  Home  went 
into  a  trance,  and  in  that  state  was  carried  out  of  the 
window  in  the  room  next  to  where  we  were,  and  was 
brought  in  at  our  window.  The  distance  between  the 
windows  was  about  seven  feet  six  inches,  and  there 
was  not  the  slightest  foothold  between  them,  nor  was 
there  more  than  a  twelve-inch  projection  to  each  win¬ 
dow,  which  served  as  a  ledge  to  put  flowers  on. 

“We  heard  the  window  in  the  next  room  lifted  up, 
and  almost  immediately  after  we  saw  Home  floating 
in  the  air  outside  our  window. 

“The  moon  was  shining  into  the  room ;  my  back  was 
to  the  light,  and  I  saw  the  shadow  on  the  wall  of  the 


'‘Journal  S.  P.  R.,  Vol.  VI.,  pp.  341-2. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


67 


window-sill,  and  Home’s  feet  about  six  inches  above 
it.  He  remained  in  this  position  for  a  few  seconds, 
then  raised  the  window  and  glided  into  the  room,  feet 
foremost,  and  sat  down. 

“Lord  Adare  then  went  into  the  next  room  to  look 
at  the  window  from  which  he  had  been  carried.  It 
was  raised  about  eighteen  inches,  and  he  expressed  his 
wonder  how  Mr.  Home  had  been  taken  through  so 
narrow  an  aperture. 

“Home  said,  still  entranced,  ‘I  will  show  you,’  and 
then,  with  his  back  to  the  window,  he  leaned  back,  and 
was  shot  out  of  the  aperture,  head-first,  with  the  body 
rigid,  and  then  returned  quite  quietly. 

“The  window  is  about  seventy  feet1  from  the  ground. 
I  very  much  doubt  whether  any  skilful  tight-rope 
dancer  would  like  to  attempt  a  feat  of  this  description, 
where  the  only  means  of  crossing  would  be  by  a  peril¬ 
ous  leap,  or  being  borne  across  in  such  a  manner  as  I 
have  described,  placing  the  question  of  the  light  aside.”2 

The  “cousin  of  his”  referred  to  was  a  Captain 
Wynne;  both  he  and  Lord  Adare  corroborated  in 
writing  the  correctness  of  the  account  given  above. 

“Elongation”:  The  “Heat  Phenomena.” 

Another  phenomena  observed  with  Home,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  peculiar  to  him,  was  that  of  elongation. 
There  are  many  probably  who  consider  the  ability  to 
stretch  one’s  fingers  to  double  their  normal  length,  or 
voluntarily  extend  one’s  arm  an  extra  foot,  even  more 

'In  his  statement  before  the  Dialectical  Society  he  gives  this 
distance  as  85  feet. 

2See  the  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Spiritualism  of  the 
Dialectical  Society,  p.  2x2. 


68  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

remarkable  than  the  ability  to  float  in  the  air  unsup¬ 
ported. 

Space  forbids  more  than  a  single  example  of  this 
phenomena,  this  also  from  the  account  by  the  Master 
of  Lindsay,  as  given  in  the  Report  of  the  Dialectical 
Society. 

“.  .  .  I  saw  Mr.  Home,  in  a  trance,  elongated 

eleven  inches.  I  measured  him  standing  up  against  the 
wall,  and  marked  the  place ;  not  being  satisfied  with 
that,  I  put  him  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  placed 
a  candle  in  front  of  him,  so  as  to  throw  a  shadow  on 
the  wall,  which  I  also  marked.  When  he  awoke  I  meas¬ 
ured  him  again  in  his  natural  size,  both  directly  and 
by  the  shadow,  and  the  results  were  equal.  I  can  swear 
that  he  was  not  off  the  ground  or  standing  on  tiptoe, 
as  I  had  full  view  of  his  feet,  and,  moreover,  a  gentle¬ 
man  present  had  one  of  his  feet  placed  over  Home’s 
insteps,  one  hand  on  his  shoulder,  and  the  other  on  his 
side,  where  the  false  ribs  come  near  the  hip-bone.  .  .  . 
There  was  no  separation  of  the  vertebrae  of  the  spine, 
nor  were  the  elongations  at  all  like  those  resulting  from 
expanding  the  chest  with  air ;  the  shoulders  did  not 
move.  Home  looked  as  if  he  was  pulled  up  by  the 
neck;  the  muscles  seemed  in  a  state  of  tension.  He 
stood  firmly  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and,  before  the 
elongation  commenced,  I  placed  my  foot  on  his  instep. 
I  will  swear  he  never  moved  his  heels  from  the 
ground.”1 

Commenting  on  the  evidence,  Mr.  Carrington  says : 
“The  defects  in  the  report  seem  to  me  to  be  such  as 


‘From  the  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Spiritualism  of  the 
Dialectical  Society,  pp.  207-8,  213-14. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


69 


would  be  made  by  any  person  drawing  up  a  report 
of  unusual  occurrences ;  minor  inaccuracies  exist,  but 
the  central  facts  seem  to  have  been  carefully  noted,  and 
rather  more  than  the  usual  care  exercised  against 
fraud.”1 

A  third  class  of  extraordinary  incidents  of  which  it  is 
necessary  to  make  mention  are  the  heat  phenomena. 

“I  have  frequently  seen  Home,  when  in  a  trance,  go 
to  the  fire  and  take  out  large  red-hot  coals,  and  carry 
them  about  in  his  hands,  put  them  inside  his  shirt,  etc. 
Eight  times  I  have  myself  held  a  red-hot  coal  in  my 
hands  without  injury,  when  it  scorched  my  face  on 
raising  my  hand.  Once,  I  wished  to  see  if  they  really 
would  burn,  and  I  said  so,  and  touched  the  coal  with 
the  middle  finger  of  my  right  hand,  and  I  got  a  blister 
as  large  as  a  sixpence;  I  instantly  asked  him  to  give 
me  the  coal,  and  I  held  the  part  that  burned  me  in  the 
middle  of  my  hand,  for  three  or  four  minutes,  without 
the  least  inconvenience.”* 

These  facts  are  corroborated  by  other  writers.  An¬ 
other  heat  incident,  throwing  as  it  also  does  a  side¬ 
light  upon  Home’s  own  character,  is  most  interesting. 

“Mr.  Home  again  went  to  the  fire,  and,  after  stir¬ 
ring  the  hot  coals  about  with  his  hand,  took  out  a 
red-hot  piece  nearly  as  big  as  an  orange,  and,  putting  it 
on  his  right  hand,  covered  it  over  with  his  left  hand,  so 
as  to  almost  completely  enclose  it,  and  then  blew  into 
the  small  furnace  thus  extemporized  until  the  lump  of 
charcoal  was  nearly  white-hot,  and  then  drew  my  at¬ 
tention  to  the  lambent  flame  which  was  flickering  over 

'Carrington:  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  395. 

'Quoted  in  the  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Spiritualism  of 
the  Dialectical  Society,  pp.  208-9. 


70 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


the  coal  and  licking  round  his  fingers ;  he  fell  on  his 
knees,  looked  up  in  a  reverent  manner,  held  up  the 
coal  in  front,  and  said,  ‘Is  not  God  good?  Are  not 
his  laws  wonderful  ?’  ”x 

It  hardly  seems  as  if  Home  would  utter  the  abso¬ 
lutely  unnecessary  blasphemous  mockery  implied  in  his 
words  if  he  knew  that  the  phenomena  he  was  producing 
were  fraudulent. 

Several  theories  have  been  attempted  to  explain  these 
heat  phenomena  “naturally,”  but  even  the  opponents  of 
spiritualism  are  forced  to  admit  that  none  of  the  theo¬ 
ries  cover  all  the  evidence.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  coals  were  taken  from  the  open  grate  in  houses 
where  Home  would  have  no  opportunity  of  “fixing” 
the  coals  in  any  way  if  any  way  were  known  to  be  pos¬ 
sible.  Furthermore,  Home  seemed  able  to  impart  his 
strange  power  to  other  persons  at  will,  the  same  persons 
being  burned  by  the  same  coal  when  this  power  was 
withdrawn.  In  one  instance  mentioned  by  Sir  William 
Crookes,  Home  placed  a  blazing  piece  of  charcoal  on 
a  cambric  handkerchief  and  fanned  it  to  a  white  heat. 
Except  for  a  tiny  burned  hole,  the  handkerchief  was 
unharmed,  and  Sir  William,  after  careful  laboratory 
analysis  of  the  handkerchief  afterward,  was  unable  to 
find  any  trace  of  special  chemical  or  other  preparation. 

As  Sir  William  Crookes  has  noted,  the  evidence  for 
the  Home  phenomena  in  quantity  and  quality  is  quite 
overwhelming.  There  remain  a  respectable  number  of 
scientists,  entirely  ignorant  of  this  evidence,  who  airily 
or  angrily  deny.  Those,  like  Mr.  Podmore,  who  have 
examined  it  carefully,  and  yet  are  opposed  to  the  whole 


1 Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  103. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  71 

spiritualistic  hypothesis,  are  forced  into  unassenting 
silence. 

The  reader  may  accept  or  not.  If  he  does  it  may  pre¬ 
dispose  him  to  accept  certain  other  phenomena  much 
less  spectacular  and  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  well  at¬ 
tested.  If  he  does  not  it  will  still  in  no  way  endanger 
any  constituent  grounds  for  the  solution  of  the  main 
problem  of  a  future  life ;  for,  as  has  already  been  stated, 
these  physical  phenomena,  true  or  false,  are  not  vital 
to  its  solution. 


“I  AM  CONVINCED  OF  THE  PERSISTENCE  OF  HUMAN 
EXISTENCE  BEYOND  BODILY  DEATH.” 

“If  any  one  cares  to  hear  what  sort  of  conviction  has  been 
borne  in  upon  my  mind,  as  a  scientific  man,  by  twenty  years’ 
familiarity  with  these  questions  which  concern  us,  I  am 
willing  to  reply  as  frankly  as  I  can.  I  am,  for  all  personal 
purposes,  convinced  of  the  persistence  of  human  existence 
beyond  bodily  death,  and  though  I  am  unable  to  justify  that 
belief  in  a  full  and  complete  manner,  yet  it  is  a  belief  which 
has  been  produced  by  scientific  evidence  that  is  based  upon 
facts  and  experience.” 

— Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  F.R.S. 


72 


Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

Terhaps  the  most  eminent  English-speaking  scholar  in  the  investigation 
of  psychical  phenomena. 


CHAPTER  IV 


EUSAPIA  PALADINO:  THE  ITALIAN 
MEDIUM 

Spiritism  seems  to  be  no  respecter  of  persons.  The 
power  of  mediumship  may  come  to  a  cultured  uni¬ 
versity  graduate  like  William  Stainton  Mo6es ;  it  may 
come  to  an  ignorant  Italian  peasant  woman  like  Eu- 
sapia  Paladino.  Imagine  the  latter,  heavy  featured 
except  for  her  wonderful  dark  liquid  eyes,  never  able  to 
read  or  write,  not  able  even  to  speak  correct  Italian, 
but  using  habitually  a  corruption  of  the  Apulian 
dialect,  but  observed  for  years  with  interest,  almost 
with  awe,  by  the  greatest  scholars  of  Europe. 

Eusapia  is  a  Neapolitan,  born  in  1854  at  the  tiny 
village  o-f  Minerno-Murge.  Left  as  an  orphan  to  the 
scant,  if  kindly,  care  of  friends,  while  but  a  baby,  she 
received  an  injury  that  may  have  something  to  do 
with  her  mediumistic  powers.  There  is  a  marked  de¬ 
pression  in  her  head,  the  result  of  that  early  fall,  and 
during  the  trance  state  a  cool  wind,  which  often  ac¬ 
companies  psychical  phenomena,  is  felt  to  issue  from 
this  “opening.” 

In  the  house  of  her  peasant  friends  her  powers  first 
became  manifest  through  the  queer  antics  of  furni¬ 
ture  and  bric-a-brac.  But  her  rise  in  fame  has  been 
spectacular.  The  humble  servant  and  saleswoman, 
turned  out  of  her  first  employment  for  her  ignorance 

73 


74 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


and  laziness,  is  now  the  protegee  of  nobility — the  Duke 
of  the  Abruzzi  is  among  her  patrons — and  the  confi¬ 
dante  of  scientists.  Incidentally,  her  mediumship  has 
made  her  wealthy. 

But  she  is  still  the  peasant  woman,  her  coarseness 
softened  a  little  by  suffering  and  by  traces  of  the  stress 
of  many  seances,  her  eyes  sharpened  a  little  with  the 
native  shrewdness  of  her  class.  Yet  in  appearance  she 
is  anything  but  striking;  in  temperament  she  is  often 
peevish,  sometimes  malicious — sometimes  exhibiting 
a  certain  pride  and  dignity. 

On  one  occasion,  for  instance,  “she  was  staying 
with  the  Grand  Dukes  in  Saint  Petersburg :  the  Grand 
Duchess  often  sent  for  her  to  come  and  talk  to  her  or 
keep  her  company  in  the  drawing-room,  but  when 
visitors  came  she  made  an  imperious  sign,  showing 
her  the  door.  Twice  Eusapia  rather  reluctantly 
obeyed,  but  at  last  she  rebelled,  and,  planting  herself 
in  front  of  the  princess,  she  said :  ‘Madame  la  Grande 
Duchesse,  you  doubtless  mistake  me  for  a  basket  which 
is  carried  to  market  when  it  is  required,  and  left  in  a 
corner  when  it  is  done  with.  Either  I  shall  remain  in 
the  drawing-room  with  all  the  visitors,  or  I  shall  leave 
the  castle.’ 

“And  the  princess  by  blood,  not  to  discontent  the 
princess  of  spiritism,  consented  that  she  should  remain 
in  the  drawing-room.”1 

Considering  her  temperament,  her  lack  of  education, 
she  is  in  truth  hardly  the  person  one  would  choose 
at  random  as  the  messenger  with  another  world.  Yet 

’From  a  Biography  of  Eusapia  Paladino,  by  Mme.  Paola 
Carrara  (the  daughter  of  Lombroso).  See  the  review  in  the 
Annals  of  Psychical  Sciencet  v.  6,  p.  217. 


Eusapia  Paladino 


Most  famous  of  living  ''physical”  mediums,  from  a  photograph  taken 
at  the  beginning  of  her  mediumship 


II 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


75 


to  this  humble  Neapolitan  country  woman  seems  vouch¬ 
safed  a  power  that  is  revolutionizing  psychical  science 
and  reviving  the  hopes  of  all  humanity. 

The  Beginning  of  Eusapia’s  Mediumistic  Career 

Eusapia  lacks  initiative  even  in  her  spiritistic  mani¬ 
festations.  Her  seance-room  habits  and  conventions 
are  the  typical  ones  of  spiritualism  as  it  developed  in 
this  country,  for  it  was  to  a  Sig.  Damiani,  an  ardent 
spiritist  who  had  learned  of  American  spiritualism 
while  in  England,  that  she  owed  her  earliest  develop¬ 
ment.  He  first  became  acquainted  with  her  in  1872, 
discovered  her  mediumistic  powers,  and  the  ten  years 
following  were  a  period  of  slow  development  and 
locally  increasing  fame  under  his  tuition.1 

As  far  back  as  1888,  however,  Eusapia  had  attracted 
the  notice  of  a  number  of  scientists,  and  already  num¬ 
bered  among  her  friends  such  men  as  Professor  Chiaia, 
of  Naples.  Convinced  himself  of  the  genuineness  of 
her  phenomena,  he  endeavored  to  secure  wider  scien¬ 
tific  cooperation  in  his  investigations,  especially  that  of 
his  friend  Lombroso,  the  eminent  criminologist.  Lom- 
broso  had  been  openly  and  even  contemptuously  skep¬ 
tical  of  all  psychic  phenomena ;  and  it  was  not  till 
February,  1891,  when  Professor  Chiaia’s  accounts  of 
the  alleged  wonders  had  beeen  corroborated  by  numer¬ 
ous  others,  that  he  consented  to  investigate  for  him¬ 
self. 

Of  these  first  important  sittings  in  Naples,  M.  Flam- 
marion,  the  noted  French  astronomer  and  author,  is 


1Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  May,  1907,  p.  334. 


76 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


our  chief  chronicler.  In  fact,  his  book,  Mysterious 
Psychic  Forces,  is  mainly  a  record  of  these  first  for¬ 
mal  investigations  of  Eusapia. 

The  seances  took  place  in  a  room  chosen  by  Lom- 
broso  himself  in  a  local  hotel,  and  the  arrangements 
were  entirely  under  his  direction.  Among  those  pres¬ 
ent,  besides  Lombroso,  were  Professors  Gigli,  Limon- 
celli  and  Vizioli,  and  M.  Bianchi,  then  superintend¬ 
ent  of  the  insane  asylum  at  Sales. 

At  their  first  seance  several  hours  passed  by  without 
marked  result,  and,  as  is  often  the  case,  bade  fair  to  be 
a  failure. 

“But,”  says  Flammarion,  telling  the  story,  “when 
MM.  Limoncelli  and  Vizioli  were  taking  leave,  the 
medium  being  still  seated  and  bound,  and  all  of  us 
standing  around  the  table  conversing  .  .  .  we  heard 
noises  in  the  alcove,  and  saw  .  .  .  the  round  table 
which  was  behind  them  slowly  advancing  toward  Mme. 
Paladino,  still  seated  and  bound. 

“On  seeing  this  strange,  unexpected  phenomena  oc¬ 
cur  in  full  light,  we  were  all  stupefied  with  amazement. 
M.  Bianchi  and  M.  Lombroso’s  nephew  dashed  into 
the  alcove,  under  the  impression  that  some  person 
concealed  there  was  producing  the  movement  of  the 
portieres  and  the  round  table.  Their  astonishment  was 
unbounded  when  they  ascertained  that  there  was  no 
one  there,  and  that,  under  their  very  eyes,  the  table 
continued  to  glide  over  the  floor  in  the  direction  of  the 
medium.”1 

At  another  time  says  M.  Flammarion: 

“I  saw,  and  plainly  saw,  the  rough  deal  table  (a  table 


'Flammarion:  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  pp.  148-9. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


77 


a  yard  long  and  nearly  two  feet  wide  and  resting  on 
four  feet)  rise  up  several  times  from  the  floor  and, 
without  any  contact  with  visible  objects,  remain  sus¬ 
pended  in  the  air,  several  inches  above  the  floor,  dur¬ 
ing  the  space  of  two,  three  and  even  four  seconds. 

“This  experiment  was  renewed  in  full  light  without 
the  hands  of  the  medium  and  of  the  five  persons  who 
formed  the  chain  about  the  table  touching  the  latter 
in  any  way.”1 

Succeeding  sittings  of  the  Naples  series  gave  fur¬ 
ther  manifestations :  the  more  common  poltergeist  phe¬ 
nomena — that  is,  the  ringing  of  bells,  the  throwing  of 
objects  about  the  darkened  seance  room,  twitchings  of 
hair  and  beard,  etc. — as  well  as  the  materialization  of 
ghostly  hands.  So  significant  were  the  results  ob¬ 
tained  that  Lombroso  was  forced  to  admit  a  growing 
confusion  in  his  own  mind,  if  not  actual  belief  in  these 
“occult”  phenomena.  “I  regret,”  he  wrote  to  a  friend 
about  this  time,  “that  I  combated  with  so  much  per¬ 
sistence  the  possibilities  of  the  facts  called  spiritualis¬ 
tic.” 

Lombroso’s  interest  and  provisional  conversion  were 
contagious.  So  great  was  the  weight  of  his  authority 
that  other  coteries  of  scientists  were  eager  to  investi¬ 
gate  the  pretensions  of  the  Neapolitan  peasant  woman. 

Eusapia  was  at  this  time  married  and  living  humbly 
in  a  poorer  quarter  of  Naples.  With  some  reluctance 
she  consented  to  new  tests  of  her  powers,  concerning 
which,  it  may  be  noted  here,  she  had  no  theories  and 
even,  it  seemed,  but  little  curiosity. 

She  went  to  Milan,  giving  sittings  there  in  the  pri- 


'Flammarion :  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  p.  180. 


78 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


vate  home  of  a  M.  Finzi.  The  sittings  were  again 
under  the  direct  control  of  Lombroso  himself,  assisted 
by  Dr.  Ermacora,  professor  of  natural  philosophy  at 
Milan  University,  and  M.  Gerosa,  a  physicist  of  inter¬ 
national  repute. 

Every  effort  was  made  to  obviate  fraud  in  the 
medium  and  self-delusion  in  the  investigators.  The 
latter  formed  an  imposing  company,  including,  be¬ 
sides  those  named  above,  Charles  du  Prel,  professor 
of  philosophy  at  the  University  of  Munich ;  Charles 
Richet,  of  Paris,  an  earnest  and  experienced  student 
of  psychic  phenomena;  Schiaparelli,  director  of  the 
observatory  at  Milan ;  and  M.  Aksakof,  councilor  of 
state  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  and  destined  later  to 
secure  even  more  remarkable  results  from  Eusapia. 

Yet  these  sittings  were  a  complete  success,  resulting 
in  the  almost  unqualified  adherence  of  every  member 
present  to  the  astounding  nature  of  the  phenomena  ob¬ 
served. 

In  their  efforts  to  secure  material  proof,  attempts 
were  made,  and  successfully,  to  photograph  levitated 
tables  as  the  latter  floated  without  support  in  the  air. 
Prints  of  “astral”  (spirit?)  hands  were  made  on 
smoked  paper  prepared  for  the  purpose ;  yet  the  me¬ 
dium’s  hands,  examined  immediately,  were  found  free 
of  any  sign  of  soot.  The  medium  herself  was  levitated 
and  the  spectral  hands  were  seen  on  several  occasions. 

As  a  variation  of  her  ordinary  experiments,  Eusapia 
would  project,  without  contact  (that  is,  so  she  would 
assert),  a  force  capable  of  making  impressions  in  clay 
or  plaster. 

“In  full  light,”  says  M.  Flammarion  of  another  occa¬ 
sion,  “Eusapia  calls  M.  Morselli,  and,  controlled  by 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


79 


the  two  persons  next  her,  brings  him  with  her  toward 
the  table,  upon  which  is  placed  a  mass  of  modeling 
plaster.  She  takes  his  open  hand  and  pushes  it  three 
times  toward  the  plaster,  as  if  to  sink  the  hand  into 
it  and  leave  upon  it  an  impression.  M.  Morselli’s  hand 
remains  at  a  distance  of  more  than  four  inches  from 
the  mass ;  nevertheless,  at  the  end  of  the  seance,  the 
experimenters  ascertain  that  the  lump  of  plaster  con¬ 
tains  the  impression  of  three  fingers — deeper  prints 
than  it  is  possible  to  obtain  directly  by  means  of  volun¬ 
tary  pressure.”1 

We  are  told  that  Eusapia’s  clay  impressions  are  usu¬ 
ally  profiles ;  “these  profiles  have  a  certain  resemblance 
to  a  Eusapia  grown  old,  and  in  fact  are  said  to  be 
reproductions  of  the  face  of  ‘John  King’  [her  control], 
her  father  in  a  former  life.”2 

We  have  already  noted  the  general  impression  made 
at  this  time  upon  the  investigators.  Lombroso  was 
at  least  ready  to  admit  the  probability  of  the  existence 
of  hitherto  unknown  forces. 

M.  Sully-Prudhomme,  the  famous  poet  and  author, 
member  of  the  French  Academy  and  a  witness  some¬ 
what  later  of  many  of  the  phenomena  under  con¬ 
sideration,  wrote: 

“My  conviction  is  that  I  witnessed  phenomena  which 
I  cannot  relate  to  any  ordinary  physical  law.  My  im¬ 
pression  is  that  fraud,  in  any  case,  is  more  than  im¬ 
probable — at  least  so  far  as  concerns  the  displacement 
at  a  distance  of  heavy  articles  of  furniture  arranged 


‘Flammarion :  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  pp.  183-4.  (The 
italics  are  mine.) 

2 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  May,  1907,  p.  354- 


80 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


by  my  companions  and  myself.  That  is  all  that  I  can 
say  about  it.”1 

Enrico  Morselli,  professor  of  psychology  at  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Genoa,  believed  most  of  the  phenomena  ob¬ 
served  by  him  to  be  genuine ;  and  Dr.  Porro,  the  noted 
astronomer,  director  in  turn  of  the  observatories  at 
Genoa  and  Turin  and  of  the  National  Observatory  of 
the  Argentine  Republic,  at  La  Plata,  stated  in  a  care¬ 
ful  and  detailed  report :  “The  phenomena  are  real. 
They  cannot  be  explained  either  by  fraud  or  hallucina¬ 
tion.”2 

Morselli  in  May,  1907,  reiterates  the  same  view  at 
greater  length  in  a  careful  summing  up  of  Eusapia’s 
place  in  spiritualism : 

“There  can  no  longer  be  any  doubt  as  to  the  reality 
of  Eusapia’s  phenomena.  They  have  now  been  seen 
by  too  many  persons  under  excellent  conditions  of 
verification,  with  the  full  certainty  that  the  medium 
had  not  her  hands  and  feet  free,  and  that  many  of  the 
phenomena  occurred  at  a  distance  which  excluded  all 
possibility  of  deception ;  and  there  are  now  too  many 
trustworthy  men,  accustomed  to  observe  and  experi¬ 
ment,  who  say  that  they  have  now  become  convinced 
that  Eusapia’s  mediumship  is  genuine. 

“We  have  now  got  far  beyond  the  time  when  her 
phenomena  could  be  explained  by  the  exchange  of 
hands  and  feet  in  the  dark ;  the  method  of  inquiry  into 
her  phenomena  is  very  different.  ...  In  fact,  none 
of  the  most  celebrated  mediums  are  accredited  by  so 
many  explicit  declarations  by  scientific  men  of  the 


'Flammarion:  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  p.  177. 
'Ibid.,  p.  178. 


Plaster  Casts  of  Impressions  in  Clay 

Produced  at  a  distance  by  an  unknown  force. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


81 


foremost  rank ;  no  one,  from  Home  and  F.  Cook  on¬ 
ward,  has  allowed  the  introduction  into  the  sittings 
of  scientific  instruments  and  methods  with  so  much 
tolerance  as  Paladino,”1 

At  the  earlier  date  of  which  we  are  writing,  how¬ 
ever,  there  still  lurked  with  Charles  Richet,  the  cau¬ 
tious,  in  common  with  the  great  majority  even  of  the 
professed  psychical  researchers,  a  remnant  of  anti- 
mystical  presupposition. 

“I  laughed  at  Crookes  and  his  experiments,”  wrote 
Richet;  and  this  bias  was  hard  to  overcome.  “Cer¬ 
tainty,”  he  well  says,  “follows  on  habit  rather  than 
observation.”  He  determined  to  subject  Eusapia  to 
even  more  rigid  tests  and  more  varied  experiments.  In 
his  new  studies  Richet  was  joined  by  two  eminent  in¬ 
vestigators,  Von  Schrenck-Notzing  and  Siemiradski, 
of  the  French  Institute;  yet  in  their  new  investiga¬ 
tions — this  was  in  1894 — they  could  still  find  no  trace 
of  fraud,  and  manifestations  occurred  more  wonder¬ 
ful  than  any  that  had  preceded. 

Still  unconvinced,  however — for  such  is  the  strength 
of  scientific  doubt — Richet  invited  Eusapia  to  his  own 
home.  Here  for  three  months  the  ignorant  peasant 
woman  dumfounded  his  expert  scientific  knowledge 
and  met  successfully  every  test  imposed.  “Alone  with 
her  and  Ochorowicz  [a  noted  psychologist],  a  man 
of  penetrating  perspicacity,  I  renewed  my  experiments 
in  the  best  possible  conditions  of  solitude  and  quiet 
reflection.  We  thus  acquired,”  wrote  Richet,  “a  posi¬ 
tive  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  facts  announced  at 
Milan.” 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  May,  1907,  pp.  328-9. 


82 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


It  was  natural,  of  course,  that  the  English  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  should  by  this  time  have  heard 
of  and  should  have  wished  to  investigate  phenomena 
of  such  importance.  Lengthy  reports  of  her  exploits 
had  appeared  in  the  most  scholarly  journals  of  France 
and  Italy;  the  savants  who  had  observed  had  utterly 
failed  to  find  evidence  of  fraud,  and  were  almost  a 
unit  in  their  acceptance  of  the  phenomena. 

The  Downfall  of  Eusapia  in  England 

After  some  delay,  at  the  invitation  of  M.  Richet,  an 
English  committee,  consisting  of  Professor  Oliver 
Lodge,  Mr.  Myers  and  Professor  J.  Ochorowicz,  held 
sittings  with  Eusapia;  and  they,  like  all  previous  in¬ 
vestigators,  became  convinced  of  the  genuineness  of 
the  phenomena  she  produced.  These  sittings  were, 
however,  strongly  criticized  by  that  militant  critic,  Dr. 
Hodgson,  an  expert  in  the  detection  of  psychic  fraud ; 
and  finally,  for  his  benefit,  another  series  was  held  in 
Cambridge,  England. 

Here  he  succeeded  in  discovering  the  medium  in 
actual  trickery,  for  the  first  time,  but  beyond  ques¬ 
tion.  Eusapia  was  consequently  “immediately  dropped 
by  the  society.”  “She  had  been  detected  in  trickery,” 
adds  Mr.  Carrington,  summing  up  this  controversy, 
“and,  according  to  the  standards  of  the  society,  that 
was  enough  to  condemn  her  from  future  publicity, 
so  far  as  they  were  concerned.  .  .  .  The  continen¬ 
tal  investigators,  convinced  that  the  medium  did  not 
always  practise  fraud  of  the  kind  discovered  by  Dr. 
Hodgson,  continued  their  researches,  and  (apparently) 
showed  that  phenomena  were  produced  when  trickery 
was  not  possible — at  least  trickery  of  the  sort  Dr. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


83 


Hodgson  detected.  So  strong  was  this  new  evidence, 
indeed,  that  Mr.  Myers  and  Professor  Lodge  retracted 
their  former  beliefs,  and  became  more  than  ever  con¬ 
vinced  that  supernormal  phenomena  did  occasionally 
happen  in  Eusapia’s  presence,  while  perfectly  willing 
to  admit  that  fraud  had  been  practised  at  Cambridge, 
and  would  account  for  all  the  phenomena  there  wit¬ 
nessed.  .  .  J’1 

The  case  seemed  at  that  time  very  evidently  one 
where  the  unbiased  investigator  could  not,  although 
that  would  be  of  course  the  easy  way,  discard  all  the 
phenomena  as  fraudulent  and  worthless.  He  had  still 
to  weigh  and  “prove”  (test). 

This  was  in  fact  the  situation  regarding  Eusapia  till 
as  recently  as  two  years  ago.  On  the  one  hand  she 
had  been  once  convicted  of  deliberate  fraud,  giving, 
of  course,  a  strong  presumption  that  all  her  phenomena 
were  fraudulent.  She  had  been  officially  discredited 
by  the  foremost  psychical  society  in  the  world,  the 
English  Society  for  Psychical  Research ;  and  among 
English-speaking  scientists  was  generally  believed  a 
daring  and  skilful  impostor. 

On  the  other  hand  there  was  the  testimony  of  a 
hundred  or  more  scholars  and  investigators  of  the  first 
rank.  There  were  the  cases  of  Myers  and  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  actual  witnesses  of  her  fraud,  and  yet  later 
reconverted  to  belief  in  her  supernormal  powers.  There 
were  the  proofs  of  M.  Flammarion,  who,  like  Sir 
William  Crookes,  not  satisfied  with  the  evidence  of 
his  own  eyes,  on  several  occasions  took  photographs  of 
tables  levitated  by  the  medium  while  they  floated  in 


’Carrington:  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  pp.  11,  13. 


84* 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


mid-air.1  And  there  was  finally  a  very  striking  test 
made  some  years  before  by  M.  Aksakoff,  who  “obtained 
a  levitation,  in  the  seances  at  Milan,  after  having  tied 
Eusapia’s  feet  with  two  strings,  the  ends  of  which 
were  short  and  had  been  sealed  to  the  floor  very  near 
each  foot.”2 

Two  years  ago  the  student  of  mediumship  might 
very  well  have  said :  “The  truth  of  the  matter  prob¬ 
ably  is  that  Eusapia  has  genuine  powers;  but,  when 
they  are  dormant  and  dilatory,  she  cannot  resist  the 
natural  temptation  ‘to  help  the  “spirits”  along  a  little.’ 
Were  hers  the  only  testimony  we  would  be  justified  in 
throwing  it  all  out  of  court ;  having,  however,  evidence 
of  genuine  table  levitation  in  other  cases,  we  can  but 
give  an  unbiased  presentation  of  her  case,  mentioning 
it  at  all  simply  because  of  its  wide  notoriety  and  his¬ 
torical  importance.” 

But  that  was  the  situation  two  years  ago.  Since 
then  she  has  given  new  proofs  of  her  powers,  so  con¬ 
vincing  in  the  nature  of  the  tests  imposed  that  it  may 
be  fairly  said  that  a  new  era  in  psychic  research  has 
been  inaugurated. 

There  have  been,  as  we  have  noted,  a  number  of 
conventions  in  the  conduct  of  the  seance  most  irri¬ 
tating  to  those  striving  to  obviate  trickery :  these  con¬ 
ventions  Eusapia  has  boldly  defied.  For  instance,  here¬ 
tofore  the  mystic  phenomena  could  supposedly  occur 
only  in  a  darkened  room:  some  of  Eusapia’s  most 
wonderful  manifestations  have  been  in  daylight  or 

'These  were  reproduced  in  his  book.  Though  interesting, 
they  were  taken  under  circumstances  too  adverse  (photograph¬ 
ically)  to  be  conclusive. 

“Flammarion :  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  p.  156,  footnote. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


85 


the  full  glare  of  electric  light.  The  “influences”  sup¬ 
posedly  could  not  work  away  from  their  familiar 
haunts :  Eusapia’s  greatest  triumphs  have  been  in  the 
coldly  unsympathetic  interiors  of  physical  laboratories 
surrounded  by  scientific  precision  instruments  regis¬ 
tering  with  exactitude  every  phase  of  her  manifesta¬ 
tions.  The  usual  medium  is  able  to  work  only  in  a 
secret  cabinet  and  does  not  allow  herself  to  be  touched : 
Eusapia  has  effected  wonders  as  great  as  any  in  the 
history  of  mediumship  while  her  hands  and  feet  were 
tightly  held  and  without  the  aid  of  any  cabinet  what¬ 
ever.  At  last,  and  for  the  first  time,  we  would  seem 
to  have  psychic  phenomena  brought  out  from  the  baf¬ 
fling  obscurity  of  mysticism,  superstition — and  fraud — 
into  the  dazzling  white  light  of  purely  scientific  test 
and  observation — surely  no  inconsiderable  achieve¬ 
ment! 


A  New  Series  of  Sittings  in  Genoa 

The  climax  of  Eusapia’s  mediumship,  the  sittings 
held  within  the  past  year  at  Naples,  were  fittingly  an¬ 
ticipated  by  series  of  most  remarkable  sittings  held 
in  Turin,  Genoa  and  Milan. 

In  1905  Eusapia  had  spent  a  long  visit  in  Paris,  but 
with  comparatively  slight  results. 

Returning  to  Italy,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  same 
year,  a  new  series  was  given  in  Milan  before  the  local 
Societe  d’Etudes  Psychiques.  This  series  was  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Corriere  della  Sera,  an  important 
daily  newspaper  of  northern  Italy,  and  under  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  such  authorities  as  Lombroso  and  Fogazzaro. 
In  1892  the  then  proprietor  of  the  Corriere  had  been 
instrumental  in  detecting  Eusapia  in  gross  fraud,  name- 


86 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


ly  that  tricky  releasing  of  a  hand  or  foot  from  control 
that  had  killed  her  pretensions  in  England.  At  this 
time,  however,  Eusapia  so  far  redeemed  herself  as  to 
actually  convert  to  spiritism  the  paper’s  present  edi¬ 
tors.  The  reports  of  the  Milan  sittings  were  fea¬ 
tured  in  the  Corner e,  and,  tho  inconclusive,  created  no 
little  comment.1 

This  Milan  series  was  quickly  overshadowed  in  im¬ 
portance,  however,  by  the  Genoa  sittings,  held  under 
the  direction  of  Dr.  Henrico  Morselli,  of  whom  men¬ 
tion  has  already  been  made,  the  professor  of  psychiatry 
and  neurology  at  the  University  of  Genoa.  Among 
his  confreres  were  M.  Bozzano,  an  expert  in  spiritistic 
investigation;  a  Dr.  Venzano,  M.  Berisso,  an  artist, 
and  his  wife,  at  whose  home  the  seances  were  held; 
and  M.  Barzini,  editor  of  the  Corriere  della  Sera. 

The  medium,  previous  to  the  seance,  was  completely 
undressed  and  searched.  During  the  sittings  her  hands 
and  feet  were  carefully  controlled.  The  room  was 
lighted,  adequately  if  feebly,  by  an  alcohol  lamp.  To 
prevent  the  intrusion  of  a  possible  confederate  the 
doors  were  sealed  on  the  inside. 

At  the  very  first  seance  there  were  remarkable  ex¬ 
amples  of  levitation,  apports2  and  materialization.  For 
instance,  says  M.  Barzini : 

“A  big  table  weighing  eighty  pounds,  standing  in 
a  corner  by  the  window,  on  which  we  had  placed  cases 
containing  photographic  plates,  frames,  a  metronome, 
.  .  .  a  dynamometer  and  other  objects,  approached 

1  Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  p.  HQ- 

2“Apports”  are  articles  suddenly  introduced  into  the  seance 
room  by  the  medium  with  no  visible  origin;  in  other  words, 
matter  apparently  spontaneously  created  from  thin  air. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


87 


us,  then  withdrew  again.  A  frame  came  and  lay  in 
my  hand.  Suddenly  our  plates  were  thrown  on  the 
ground;  the  frames  followed  them.  Dr.  Morselli  was 
fearing  for  the  fate  reserved  for  his  metronome  when 
we  heard  it  mysteriously  set  going  and  ticking  regular¬ 
ly.  A  few  moments  later  the  machinery  was  stopped, 
resumed  its  movement  and  was  again  stopped.  .  .  . 

Metronomes  are  not  in  the  habit  of  doing  this  on  their 
own  account:  the  experience  elicited  exclamations  of 
surprise  from  us.”  At  once  the  metronome,  “doubt¬ 
less  feeling  flattered,”  as  Barzini  humorously  says, 
jumped  blithely  of  its  own  accord  over  on  to  the  table 
before  the  medium  “and  began  cheerily  to  beat  time’* 
there.  All  this  happened  in  a  good  light.1 

At  the  second  seance  Professor  Morselli  had  hung 
two  photographic  plates  on  sticks  tied  to  the  back  of 
Eusapia’s  chair.  These  were  to  register  possible  radia¬ 
tions  emanating  from  the  medium.  During  the  seance 
they  heard  “a  delicate  and  restrained  sound”  behind 
the  medium.  Upon  looking  they  saw  to  their  aston¬ 
ishment  that  the  knots  fastening  the  vertical  sticks  to 
the  chair  were  slowly  untying  themselves.  The  blue 
and  white  strings,  plainly  seen,  were  “patiently  un¬ 
done”  by  invisible  fingers.  Then,  to  complete  the  won¬ 
der,  the  photographic  frames  did  not  fall  when  loose, 
but  gently  floated  away  into  the  cabinet.2 

At  this  seance,  too,  there  was  an  excellent  example 
of  what  is  often  referred  to  as  “bulgings”  of  the  cabi¬ 
net  curtain.  So  clear  is  M.  Barzini’s  description  of 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  p.  122. 

’Ibid,  p.  123. 


88  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

this  case — a  typical  one — that  it  is  worth  repeating 
verbatim. 

“Dr.  Morselli  felt  himself  touched  in  several  places 
by  the  moving  curtain.  He  thought  he  observed  be¬ 
hind  the  curtain  the  presence  of  a  complete  human 
form,  whose  body  leaned  against  his,  the  arms  pressing 
against  him;  we  all  saw  the  arms  wrapped  round  by 
the  curtain. 

“I  got  up  suddenly,  drawing  the  medium  against 
me,  and  I  put  my  head  between  the  opening  of  the  cur¬ 
tains  to  look  into  the  cabinet.  ...  It  was  empty. 
Professor  Morselli  felt  behind  the  curtain  at  the  spot 
where  it  bulged  out,  and  was  assured  that  it  was  empty. 
What,  from  the  outside,  appeared  to  be  a  moving  hu¬ 
man  body  covered  by  the  curtain,  was,  on  the  inside,  a 
cavity  in  the  stuff,  an  empty  mold. 

“It  reminded  one  of  Wells’  Invisible  Man.  I  then 
wished  to  touch  the  bulging  part  of  the  curtain  on  the 
outside  .  .  .  and  I  encountered  the  effectual  re¬ 

sistance  of  a  living  head.  I  distinguished  the  fore¬ 
head,  I  moved  the  palm  of  my  hand  downward  on  to 
the  cheeks  and  on  the  nose,  and  when  I  touched  the 
lips  the  mouth  opened  and  seized  me  under  the  thumb ; 
I  distinctly  felt  the  strain  of  a  clean  bite.  At  the  same 
moment  a  hand  pressed  against  my  chest  and  pushed 
me  back,  the  curtains  swelled  out  and  fell  back  inert. 
All  this  time  the  medium  remained  in  view.”1 

At  the  third  seance  Professsor  Morselli  caught 
Eusapia  in  her  usual  fraud.  She  had,  unnoticed  for  a 
moment  by  him,  released  her  left  hand  and  was  reach- 


lAnnals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  pp.  120-5.  The  italics 
are  mine. 


In  a  half-million-doilar  building  devoted  to  the  The  Lonely  Isle  Roubaud,  in  the  Mediterranean, 
study  of  psychical  phenomena.  Where  Eusapia  Paladino  was  investigated  by  Chas.  Richet. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


89 


ing  toward  a  trumpet  which  they  had  laid  on  the  table. 
He  immediately  cried  in  warning  to  the  others  “E.  T. 
V. !”  [a  prearranged  signal  of  detected  trickery],  and 
seized  her  hand  again.  Eusapia  understood  his  cryptic 
“E.  T.  V.,”  however,  and  said  sadly :  “Don’t  say  that !” 
Of  course  all  the  party  at  once  redoubled  the  closeness 
of  their  watch  upon  her.  Now  comes  the  remarkable 
part,  as  Barzini  says.  “At  this  moment,  while  the 
control  was  certainly  more  rigorous  than  ever,  the 
trumpet  was  raised  from  the  table  and  disappeared 
into  the  cabinet.  .  .  .  Evidently  the  medium  had 

attempted  to  do  with  her  hand  what  she  subsequently 
did  mediumistically.’’1 

This  example  of  fraud  would  seem,  if  anything,  to 
strengthen  Eusapia’s  position.  If  we  are  to  believe  a 
hundred  reliable  witnesses  in  thousands  of  instances 
her  trickery  is  unnecessary.  “Such  a  futile  and  fool¬ 
ish  attempt  at  fraud  is,”  as  Barzini  says,  “inexplica¬ 
ble.”  Unless,  as  perhaps  it  is,  it  is  actually  involuntary. 

Lombroso,  after  remarking  that  Eusapia  “often  lacks 
common  sense,  but  she  has  an  intuition  and  intelligent 
subtlety  which  contrast  with  her  lack  of  culture,”  adds : 
“Ingenuous  to  such  a  degree  that  she  lets  herself  be 
imposed  upon  and  taken  in  by  any  intriguer,  she  yet 
sometimes — before  and  during  the  trance — shows  a 
degree  of  cunning  which  often  amounts  to  deceit. 
Thus  on  one  occasion  she  was  seen  to  pull  out  a  hair 
in  order  to  place  it  on  the  plate  of  a  little  balance  in 
such  a  way  as  to  depress  it ;  another  time  she  was  sur¬ 
prised  while  secretly  getting  some  flowers  to  simulate 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  p.  208. 


90 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


an  apport  and  forming  of  her  handkerchief  with  her 
hands  some  mannikins  to  represent  phantoms.” 

Why  should  she  attempt  to  do  these  things  fraudu¬ 
lently  when  she  has  apparently  proved  again  and  again 
her  ability  to  do  them  genuinely?  Why,  indeed? 

At  the  fourth  seance  there  were  two  especially  re¬ 
markable  levitations.  “The  table  rose  in  the  air  to 
the  height  of  our  shoulders,  completely  isolated,  and 
while  Dr.  Venzano  counted  the  seconds  aloud,  so  as 
to  time  the  duration  of  the  phenomenon,  the  table 
marked  each  second  as  it  was  counted  by  raising  and 
lowering  one  of  its  ends.  .  .  .  As  we  followed  the 

count  of  seconds  we  were  amazed  at  its  length.  But 
the  table  evidently  felt  some  pride  in  its  performance, 
as  it  continued  pluckily;  when  sixty  seconds  had  been 
counted,  the  table  fell  back  to  the  ground.  .  .  .”1 

A  little  later  it  went  up  again,  floating  this  time 
seventy-eight  seconds,  which  may  be  said  to  break  the 
levitation  record ! 

In  fact,  at  this  sitting,  the  psychic  forces,  whatever 
they  might  be,  appeared  to  be  especially  obliging. 

“Unknown  to  the  others,”  continues  the  record,  “Dr. 
Morselli  had  brought  with  him  a  piece  of  string,  about 
sixteen  inches  long;  this  he  laid  on  the  table.  The 
string  disappeared,  then  came  back,  wagging  like  the 
tail  of  an  animal.  The  professor  examined  it  and  then 
said,  in  a  tone  of  disappointment  ‘.  .  .  I  wanted 

to  see  it  knotted.’  ”  It  evidently  had  not  understood 
what  was  expected  of  it;  but,  as  Barzini  says,  ‘it  was 
not  lacking  in  good  will,’  for  it  at  once  mysteriously 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  pp.  210-11. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  91 

vanished,  only  to  reappear  instantaneously  shortly  after 
with  three  neat  knots  tied  in  it  at  regular  intervals.1 

There  were  numerous  materializations,  especially  of 
hands  and  of  shadowy  and  more  or  less  vaporous  ap¬ 
pearances.  Sometimes  these  were  felt ;  occasionally  the 
experimenters  were  able  to  clasp  the  etheric  members. 
“The  feeling,”  says  M.  Barzini,  .  .  was  very 

curious ;  they  did  not  escape  from  my  grasp ;  they  dis¬ 
solved,  so  to  speak.  They  slipped  out  of  my  hands 
as  if  they  had  collapsed.  They  seemed  like  hands  that 
had  very  rapidly  melted  and  dissolved,  after  manifest¬ 
ing  a  high  degree  of  energy,  and  an  absolutely  life-like 
appearance  while  performing  actions.”2 

The  First  Turin  Seances 

Shortly  after  the  Genoa  sittings,  in  February,  1906, 
Lombroso  held  a  new  series  with  Eusapia,  this  time 
in  Turin.  The  company  present  was  a  representative 
one :  Drs.  Imoda  and  Audenino,  assistants  to  Prof. 
Lombroso ;  M.  Pomba,  an  engineer ;  Count  Guy  Bor- 
relli;  two  lawyers,  M.  Maris  and  M.  Jacques  Bar- 
baroux;  M.  Emile  Barbaroux;  Dr.  Joseph  Roasenda; 
Dr.  Norlenghi,  a  member  of  the  municipal  council  of 
Turin;  Professor  Jannacone,  of  the  University  of 
Turin;  M.  Bocca,  a  publisher;  two  ladies,  one  an 
American,  and  Sig.  Mucchi,  a  newspaper  man.  The 
sittings  were  held,  this  time  not  at  a  private  house,  but 
in  the  psychiatrical  laboratory  of  the  university.  Every 
precaution  was  taken  to  obviate  fraud ;  although  “none 


1  Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  p.  21 1. 

“From  the  report  by  M.  Barzini  in  the  Corriere  della  Sera, 
of  Milan.  Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  p.  210. 


92 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


of  the  most  important  phenomena  which  occurred,” 
says  Sig.  Mucchi  in  his  report,  “left  room  for  the 
slightest  suspicion  of  trickery.  They  were  all  of  such 
a  kind  that  they  could  not  be  imitated  even  by  the 
cleverest  jugglery.”  Moreover,  this  time  the  room 
\vas  lit  by  electric  light  l1 

Manifestations  began  almost  immediately.  “A  cold 
wind  came  from  behind  the  curtain,  which  suddenly 
opened  as  if  it  had  been  opened  by  two  hands.  A  hu¬ 
man  head  came  out,  with  a  pale,  haggard  face,  of  sin¬ 
ister  evil  aspect.  It  lingered  a  moment  and  then  dis¬ 
appeared.”2 

A  moment  later  “a  woman’s  small  hand  .  .  . 

reappeared  near  the  curtain,  seized  one  of  the  feet  of 
the  footstool,  and  pushed  it.  Sig.  Mucchi  broke  the 
chain  [of  hands]  and,  by  a  rapid  action,  seized  the 
warm  hand,  which  at  once  seemed  to  dissolve  and  dis¬ 
appeared.”3 

At  the  close  of  the  seance  the  reporter  placed  his 
hand  on  the  deep  scar  which  the  medium  has  on  the 
left  side  of  her  head  and  felt  a  cold,  strong,  continuous 
breeze  issuing  from  it,  like  a  human  breath.  He  sub¬ 
sequently  felt  the  same  cold  breeze  issuing,  though 
less  strongly,  from  the  tips  of  her  fingers. 

It  was  at  the  third  sitting  that  Dr.  Mucchi  became 
involved  in  a  weird  struggle  with  the  invisible  entities 
that  seemed  to  be  at  work  around  them.  A  mass  of' 
clay  had  been  placed  within  the  cabinet  in  the  hope 
that  Eusapia  might  be  able  to  produce  some  of  her 


1  Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  p.  305. 

*Ibid.,  p.  306. 

sIbid.,  p.  306. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


93 


inexplicable  molds  therein.  After  some  waiting  they 
were  told  “typtologically” — that  is,  by  rappings  with¬ 
in  the  table — “The  impression  is  made.” 

Eager  to  view  the  result,  Dr.  Mucchi  rose  and  went 
toward  the  cabinet.  “I  was  about  to  enter,”  he  says 
.  .  but  was  repelled  by  two  hands  made  of  noth¬ 

ing.  I  felt  them ;  they  were  agile  and  prompt ;  they 
seized  me  and  pushed  me  back.  The  struggle  lasted 
for  some  time;  the  hands  seemed  to  take  pleasure  in 
resisting  me ;  they  pushed  me  back  if  I  tried  to  enter, 
and  pulled  me  forward  if  I  retired.  I  ended  by  seiz¬ 
ing  the  lump  of  clay  .  .  .”  whereupon  “they  thrust 

me  out  with  a  violent  shove  that  nearly  upset  every¬ 
thing.  There  were  observable  on  the  clay  two  or  three 
impressions  such  as  might  be  made  by  a  closed  fist.”1 

Was  there  ever  a  stranger  combat?  A  strong  man 
in  a  desperate  physical  struggle  with — thin  air!  In¬ 
explicable,  you  may  say,  nay,  impossible!  Yet  there 
was  an  abundant  if  dim  electric  light:  Dr.  Mucchi  is 
a  skilled  observer :  this  phenomena  is  of  a  piece  with 
scores  of  well-authenticated  other  instances.  Surely 
the  thing  cannot  be  airily  smiled  away. 

A  little  later  a  mandolin  lying  on  the  table  in  the 
plain  sight  of  every  one  played  of  itself ;  the  strings 
throbbing  separately  or  in  unison  without  any  visible 
cause.  “One  of  us  was  asked  to  play  on  the  medium’s 
fingers  as  if  they  were  a  mandolin ;  a  string  sounded 
in  correspondence  with  each  touch,  and  if  the  touch 
was  vague  the  sound  was  incomplete  or  strident.”  But 
the  still  was  not  all.  Shortly  afterward  “a  hand, 
which  suddenly  materialized,  seized  the  instrument  by 


'Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  p.  309. 


94- 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


the  handle  and  placed  it  on  the  shoulder  of  the  player, 
and  there,  under  his  very  nose,  the  strings  shook  and 
twanged.”  Then  “the  hand  dissolved  and  disap¬ 
peared.”1 

At  both  the  third  and  fourth  sittings  appeared  an¬ 
other  example  of  that,  even  with  Eusapia,  rare  phe¬ 
nomena,  what  appeared  to  be  a  materialized  head.  It 
acted  as  though  it  were  one  known  to  Pomba,  the 
engineer :  reaching  out  from  the  curtain  its  two  hands, 
it  held  him  with  a  caressing  gesture  while  it  kissed 
him.  This  appearance  was  seen  by  all  present,  being 
plainly  visible,  though  at  no  time  sharply  defined.  It 
seemed  indeed  to  be  continually  varying  in  size,  dimin¬ 
ishing  and  increasing  visibly,  “so  that  sometimes  it 
appeared  to  be  that  of  an  adult,  sometimes  that  of  a 
child.  It  was  evidently  subject  to  the  variations  of 
the  emission  of  the  mediumistic  force  .  .  .  the 

medium  seemed  more  fatigued  when  the  head  was 
more  largely  developed.”2 

But,  alas  for  the  easy  path  toward  complete  belief, 
again  there  was  a  brazen  example  of  trickery.  One 
of  the  most  astounding  phenomena  of  the  Genoa  sit¬ 
tings  had  been  a  registration  of  242  pounds  pressure 
on  a  dynamometer,  showing  a  greater  strength  than 
that  exerted  by  the  strongest  man.  Who  or  what 
could  have  so  powerfully  affected  the  instrument? 

This  time  the  invisible  fingers  at  work  on  the  in¬ 
strument  were  observed  more  carefully,  and  “John” 
was  caught  tampering  with  the  needle  in  an  unusually 
clever  way.3 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  p.  310. 

2Ibid.,  p.  313.  ‘Ibid,,  pp.  311-12. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


95 


Yet  alas  too  for  the  decryer  of  all  these  phenomena, 
for  he  must  admit: 

1.  That  apparently  invisible  fingers  were  perform¬ 
ing  the  trick! 

2.  That  strength  pressures  of  nearly  150  pounds 
were  exerted  time  and  again  in  the  production  of  levi¬ 
tations  which  the  witnesses  claimed  were  indisputable. 

Truly  it  is  a  tangled  thread  to  unsnarl.1 

The  Second  Turin  Seances 

So  suggestive  had  these  Turin  sittings  been,  so  im¬ 
portant  the  results  obtained,  that  they  had  hardly  been 
finished  ere  Eusapia  was  prevailed  upon  to  give  a  sup¬ 
plementary  series  in  the  same  place.  The  latter  sit¬ 
tings  were  under  the  auspices  of  Drs.  Amedeo  Herlitz- 
ka,  Carlo  Foa  and  Alberta  Aggazotti,  all  professors 
in  the  University  of  Turin  and  assistants  of  the  famous 
psychologist,  Professor  Mosso,  all  comparatively 
young  men,  but  all  enthusiastic,  if  cold-blooded,  re¬ 
searchers  in  laboratory  science,  absolutely  devoid  of 
anything  like  superstition,  and  considering  poor  Eu¬ 
sapia  merely  as  a  case  in  abnormal  psychology,  whose 
strange  manifestations  must  be  weighed  and  dissected 
in  the  interests  of  pure  science. 

Imagine  the  sensation  that  set  half  Europe  on  the 
qui  vive  when  these  researchers  prefaced  the  careful 
report  resulting  with  these  words :  “The  conditions 
under  which  the  seances  occurred  are  of  a  nature  to 
afford  peculiar  guarantees  that  we  were  the  victims 
neither  of  fraud,  nor  of  clever  charlatans,  nor  of  hal- 

‘For  a  detailed  account  of  the  first  Turin  sittings  see  the 
report  by  Sig.  Mucchi  in  La  Stampa,  a  Milanese  journal.  See 
also  the  Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  pp.  305-14. 


96 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


lucination.”  Nay,  rather  the  phenomena  seemed  to 
them  inexplicably  but  most  wonderfully  genuine;  and 
they  said  with  convincing  boldness :  “Now  that  we  are 
persuaded  of  the  authenticity  of  the  phenomena,  we 
feel  it  our  duty  to  state  the  fact  publicly  in  our  turn, 
and  to  proclaim  that  the  few  pioneers  in  this  branch 
of  biology  (destined  to  become  one  of  the  most  im¬ 
portant)  generally  saw  and  observed  correctly.”1 

They,  like  the  other  scientists,  preferred  the  evidence 
of  exact  instruments  to  that  even  of  their  own  eyes 
and  ears.  Hence  the  presence  of  a  dynamometer,  a 
revolving  self-registering  cylinder  connected  electric¬ 
ally  with  a  switch,  and  photographic  plates  wrapped  in 
light-proof  paper.  Besides  the  experimenters  there 
were  present  only  Count  Verdun,  in  whose  house  the 
seances  took  place,  Dr.  Imoda,  the  Chevalier  Rostain 
and  “a  lady.”  The  first  sitting,  as  is  generally  the 
case,  was  comparatively  lacking  in  interest,  though 
there  was  considerable  poltergeist  phenomena;  but  at 
the  second,  at  which  a  Dr.  Arullani  had  been  added 
to  the  company,  occurred  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
happenings  in  the  history  of  spiritualism. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  evening  there  had  been  a 
number  of  remarkable  levitations,  “table  No.  i”  having 
floated  high  in  the  air,  over  the  heads,  indeed,  of  some 
of  the  company,  also  turning  itself  over.  “Table  No. 
i”  was  described  as  “a  strong  table  of  white  wood, 
about  two  feet  nine  inches  high  and  three  feet  long  by 
twenty-two  inches  broad,  weighing  seventeen  pounds.” 
When  it  had  seemed  to  quiet  down  for  a  moment,  Dr. 
Arullani,  who  was  especially  skeptical,  approached  it  to 


'The  italics  are  mine. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  97 

examine  it  closely ;  but  “the  piece  of  furniture,  moving 
violently  toward  him,  repulsed  him.”1 

A  moment  later  the  medium  announced  quietly  in 
her  natural  voice:  “I  am  going  to  break  the  table.” 
“.  .  .  All  those  who  were  on  the  left  of  the  medium 
could  observe,  by  a  very  good  red  light,  the  various 
movements  of  the  table.  The  latter  bent  down  and 
passed  behind  the  curtain,  followed  by  one  of  us  (Dr. 
Carlo  Foa),  who  saw  it  turn  over,  and  rest  on  one  of 
its  two  short  sides,  while  one  of  the  legs  of  the  table 
came  off  violently,  as  if  under  the  action  of  some 
force  pressing  upon  it.  At  this  moment,  the  table 
came  violently  out  of  the  cabinet  and  continued  to 
break  up  under  the  eyes  of  every  one  present;  at  first 
its  different  parts  were  torn  off,  then  the  boards  them¬ 
selves  went  to  pieces.  Two  legs  which  still  remained 
united  by  a  thin  slip  of  wood  floated  above  us  and 
placed  themselves  on  the  seance  table.”2 

Of  this  astounding  phenomena  there  can  seem  to 
be,  from  the  evidence,  no  question.  The  table  cer¬ 
tainly  existed,  and  after  the  seance  was  over  was  found 
“broken  into  .  .  .  pieces  of  various  sizes.”3  Nor  is 
there  any  doubt  about  its  breaking:  “the  nails  were 
torn  out,  the  rivets  and  boards  were  broken.”4  It  hap¬ 
pened  “in  the  midst  of  many  witnesses,  under  good 
.  .  .  light.  The  medium  was  most  carefully  controlled 
— during  the  occurrence  of  the  most  important  phe¬ 
nomena,  Eusapia’s  legs  were  placed  horizontally  on  our 
knees.”® 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  5,  pp.  378-9. 

'Ibid.,  p.  379.  'Ibid.,  p.  383.  *Ibid.,  p.  385.  'Ibid.,  pp.  378-9. 


98 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Furthermore,  the  strength  required  literally  to  pull 
to  pieces  such  a  table  is  enormous,  greater  in  fact  than 
most  men  could  exert,  to  say  nothing  of  Eusapia. 

But  what  did  rend  that  table?  The  investigators  in 
this  case  admit  candidly  their  complete  mystification. 


Dr.  Pio  Foa 

Professor  of  Pathologic  Anatomy,  University  of  Turin,  and  a  student 
for  many  years  of  mediumistic  phenomena. 


“I  AM  CONVINCED  THAT  AFTER  DEATH  MAN  DOES 
NOT  PERISH  ENTIRELY.” 


I  am  convinced  that  after  death  man  does  not  perish  en¬ 
tirely;  all  of  his  individuality  is  not  destroyed;  his  more  noble 
and  spiritual  qualities  persist  in  another  life,  higher  and  more 
comprehensive.  It  is  a  life  which  we  do  not  know  as  yet,  but 
which  is  revealed  to  us  by  an  inner  consciousness.  The  Bible 
and  the  sacred  books  speak  to  us  of  that  other  life,  describing 
it  in  a  language  so  picturesque  and  sincere  that  millions  of 
men  have  believed  that  they  were  dictated  to  us  by  some 
one  who  must  know  perfectly  the  life  beyond  the  grave.  Man¬ 
kind  has  universally  attributed  these  pages  to  divine  origin, 
and  has  believed  them  to  be  a  revelation  made  by  God  to  man. 

The  moment  we  admit  the  probability  of  man’s  sur¬ 
vival  after  death  we  must  also  face  the  possibility  of  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  spiritualism — that  is,  that  it  is  possible  that  we  are 
surrounded,  in  the  air,  by  spirits  or  beings,  their  pure  essence, 
which  under  special  conditions  may  be  able  to  manifest  them¬ 
selves  to  us.  The  question  becomes  one  of  sufficient  impor¬ 
tance  to  be  worthy  of  scientific  study  and  research.  Thus  we 
have  to-day  such  men  as  Lombroso,  Pio  Foa,  Richet,  Flam- 
irarion,  Sardou,  Crookes,  Stead  and  others,  who  are  bringing 
all  their  intelligence  to  bear  to  try  to  investigate  and  deter¬ 
mine  the  nature  of  the  force  possessed  by  some  individuals 
of  moving  objects  at  a  distance  without  contact,  and  of  cer¬ 
tain  other  mediumistic  phenomena,  materializations  princi¬ 
pally. 

Personally,  I  have  made  a  long  series  of  investigations  with 
the  celebrated  medium,  Eusapia  Paladino,  who  is  a  Neapolitan 
in  origin.  These  experiments  were  made  under  strictly  scien¬ 
tific  conditions,  with  the  assistance  of  Drs.  Galeotti,  de  Amicis, 
Lombardi,  and  a  few  other  eminent  men,  professors  in  the  Uni- 

99 


100  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

versity  of  Naples.  The  question  is  most  complex  and  difficult 
to  solve. 

Up  to  the  present  time  I  would  not  say  that  we  have  suffi¬ 
cient  proof  to  determine  exactly  the  nature  of  these  forces,  or 
of  the  phenomena,  if  you  prefer.  But  they  exist  and  are 
real.  That  has  been  attested  to  so  many  times,  by  men  of 
unimpeachable  probity,  that  they  are  no  longer  to  be  denied. 
I  know  there  are  those  who  claim  that  Eusapia  Paladino  is 
a  charlatan  and  a  fraud,  and  that  all  of  the  scientific  men  are 
mere  dupes.  But  those  assertions  are  made  by  people  who  have 
never  assisted  at  her  seances.  On  my  own  account  I  can  state 
that  with  me  Eusapia  has  never  resorted  to  tricks.  I  have  seen 
a  table,  which  was  placed  a  yard  away  from  the  medium, 
moved  about  in  broad  daylight  without  being  touched  by 
any  one.  I  have  seen  my  own  eye-glasses,  which  I  wear 
without  a  string,  picked  up  by  an  invisible  hand  when  they 
had  fallen  on  the  floor,  and  placed  gently  on  my  nose  again. 
I  have  seen  a  little  lock  of  hair  placed  so  softly  on  the  table 
before  us,  by  a  force  invisible,  that  we  were  not  aware  of 
what  was  being  done  until  we  saw  it  lying  there.  We  have 
requested  that  flowers  be  placed  on  the  table,  and  at  a  given 
moment  they  appeared  on  a  whatnot,  four  feet  away  from 
the  medium.  The  same  nosegay  I  saw  pass  caressingly  over 
the  face  of  one  of  the  scientists  present,  and  pose  itself  on 
his  knee.  Twice  I  have  seen  a  dark  form,  which  might  be  a 
head,  appear  behind  the  head  of  Eusapia,  when  she  was  in  a 
trance  state.  Gradually  the  form  became  lighter,  pale,  and 
then  as  if  illuminated.  Some  one  asked  the  medium  who 
it  was,  and  she  answered  in  a  feeble  voice,  “It  is  Peppino.” 
Another  time  Eusapia  applied  her  forehead  to  mine,  at  the 
same  time  saying,  “Look!”  And  we  saw  a  human  head,  very 
pale,  but  clearly  illuminated,  appear  behind  her  own. 

But  I  could  go  on  indefinitely  talking  of  my  experiments 
with  this  medium,  which  have  extended  over  a  number  of 
years.  I  quite  understand  that  to  the  uninitiated  much  of 
this  seems  too  strange  for  belief,  and  that  only  those  who 
have  had  the  experiences  can  really  conceive  of  their  reality. 

And  as  for  the  explanation  of  these  manifestations,  that  will 
be  for  coming  generations  to  solve.  — Filippo  Botazzi. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  LATER  MEDIUMSHIP  OF  EUSAPIA 
PALADINO 

While  recent  enthusiasm  over  Eusapia  was  still  at 
white  heat,  Bottazzi  and  Galeotti,  the  one  of  the  depart¬ 
ment  of  physics,  the  other  professor  of  general  path¬ 
ology,  at  the  University  of  Naples,  the  medium’s  na¬ 
tive  city,  determined  on  a  new  series  of  sittings.  These 
were  not  so  much  for  the  purpose  of  imposing  ad¬ 
ditional  tests;  for  by  this  time  the  great  majority  of 
Italian  investigators  had  come  to  consider  fraud  a  dis¬ 
missed  solution:  but  it  was  hoped  that  with  increased 
knowledge  of  conditions  favorable  to  mediumistic 
manifestation  new  and  perhaps  more  startling  data 
might  be  secured.  In  this  they  were  not  disappointed. 

Bottazzi’s  introduction  is  a  model  of  scientific  cau¬ 
tion.  “Barzini’s  descriptions  were  excellent,”  he 
writes,  “but  we  wanted  documents  and  proofs.  So 
many,  however,  had  already  seen  these,  and  yet  had 
doubted;  we  ought  to  be  able  to  furnish  evidence 
analogous  to  that  given  in  our  scientific  publications.” 

“Everything  must  be  registered  by  writing  and 
photography,  i.e.,  all  that  can  be  registered.  Will  she 
be  able  to  impress  a  photographic  plate?  Will  she  be 
able  to  illuminate  a  screen  treated  with  platino-cyanide 

101 


102 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


of  barium?  Will  she  be  able  to  discharge  a  gold-leaf 
electroscope  without  touching  it?”1 

M.  Bottazzi  appreciated  fully  the  vital  weakness  in 
the  usual  testimony  of  the  seance.  “To  assert,”  he 
says,  “that  Mr.  X.,  being  present  at  a  particular  seance, 
heard  a  touch  upon  a  telegraphic  key  which  had  been 
placed  in  the  cabinet  out  of  reach  of  the  medium’s 
visible  hand,  is  obviously  less  valuable  than  to  be  able 
to  show  the  incredulous  public  a  graphic  tracing  of 
the  movements  of  the  electro-magnetic  needle,  connect¬ 
ed  with  the  keyboard,  recorded  on  a  sheet  of  smoked 
paper  at  a  considerable  distance  from  the  medium. 
For  it  is  always  possible  to  suggest  that  Mr.  X.  was 
the  victim  of  hallucination. 

“It  will  not  avail  to  add  that  the  sounds  were  heard 
by  all  those  present.  The  obstinately  incredulous  will 
reply :  ‘That  may  be ;  but  it  was  a  case  of  collective 
hallucination.’  ”2 

Nor  was  the  data  in  this  way  secured  insufficiently 
scrutinized  or  carelessly  collated. 

“I  wrote  the  detailed  account  of  the  phenomena 
which  occurred  during  each  seance,”  says  Bottazzi, 
“sometimes  on  the  same  night,  or  else  the  following 
morning;  and  it  is  from  these  accounts,  after  I  had 
interrogated  my  friends  on  certain  doubtful  or  con¬ 
troverted  points,  that  this  report  has  been  written  with 
a  calm  and  collected  mind.”3 

How  far  Bottazzi’s  mental  attitude  differed  from 
that  of  the  professed  spiritualist  is  significantly  shown 
by  the  phrase  with  which  he  opens  the  report  of  each 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  p.  151. 

p.  261.  “Ibid.,  p.  267 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


103 


seance.  It  is  a  statement  of  religious  theorizing  or 
sentimental -hapsody?  Not  exactly.  He  begins  thus : 


“First  Seance  ( April  lyth,  1907). 

“Barometric  pressure  at  9  p.m.:  760.79  mm.;  tem¬ 
perature,  9.70  Cent.”1 

And  this  cold,  precise  exactitude,  it  may  be  noted 
here,  is  matched  in  much  of  the  recent  work  with 
Eusapia.  Listen,  for  instance,  to  a  sample  of  Lom- 
broso’s  description  of  the  medium  herself :  is  there 
any  trace  here  of  emotionalism  or  mysticism? 

Eusapia  has,  he  says,  “a  stenocrotaphy — that  is  to 
say,  the  bizygomatic  diameter  of  her  head  is  larger  than 
the  frontal  one  (127  to  113)  ;  a  dolichocephaly  (73), 
which,  however,  is  ethnic ;  a  head  of  small  circumfer¬ 
ence  (530)  ;  an  asymmetry  in  the  cranium  as  well  as 
in  the  face,  the  right  side  being  more  developed.  The 
left  eye  presents  the  Claude  Bernard-Horner  phenome¬ 
non,  as  in  the  case  of  epileptics.  The  eyes  are  choroec- 
topic  above  and  within,  and  react  only  feebly  to  light, 
but  have  good  power  of  accommodation,”  etc.,  etc.2 

Nor  were  the  assistants  invited  by  Bottazzi  required 
to  have  spiritualistic  leanings  or  even  knowledge.  On 
the  other  hand,  “It  was  thought  advisable  to  choose 
sitters  quite  new  to  mediumistic  seances  .  .  .  per¬ 

sons  whose  scientific  prestige  was  indisputable.”3 

Eusapia’s  new  inquisition,  if  we  may  call  it  that, 
showed,  therefore,  some  new  names,  but  those  equally 
distinguished  in  scientific  circles.  Besides  Galeotti 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  p.  271. 

'Ibid.,  pp.  167-8.  ‘Ibid.,  p.  153. 


104. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


and  Bottazzi,  there  were  M.  Luigi  Lombardi  and  Dr. 
Scarpa,  both  professors  in  the  electrical  department  of 
the  Naples  Polytechnic  High  School ;  Dr.  T.  de  Amicis, 
a  physician  and  professor  of  dermatology  in  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Naples ;  and  Dr.  Pansini,  a  noted  expert  in 
medical  semeiotics ;  Emanuele  Jona,  an  engineer,  and 
president  of  the  Italian  Electro-technical  Association; 
the  venerable  Senator  Antonio  Cardarelli,  professor  of 
clinical  medicine  at  the  university ;  and  Nicola  Minu- 
tillo,  instructor  in  Roman  law.  Only  a  part  of  these 
persons  were  present  at  all  the  seances. 

The  experiments  took  place  in  a  room  forming  part 
of  the  physiological  laboratories  of  the  university.  The 
walls  were  bare  of  curtain  or  ornament:  the  furniture 
the  simplest:  the  cabinet,  which  Eusapia  was  not  even 
allowed  to  touch,  was  one  improvised  by  Bottazzi  him¬ 
self.  “Although  she  approached  it,  .  .  .  and  felt 

impelled  several  times  to  touch  the  outside  of  the  cur¬ 
tain,  she  never,”  he  says,  ‘‘put  her  hand  into  the  cabinet, 
and  never  examined  the  interior  of  it,  either  before  or 
during  a  seance.”1 

At  all  sittings  her  hands  and  feet  were  held  contin¬ 
uously  by  two  or  more  of  the  party,  wary  of  the  slight¬ 
est  suspicious  movement,  and  cognizant  of  every 
tremor,  even,  that  she  might  make.  Moreover,  even 
in  the  selection  and  disposition  of  the  scientific  appa¬ 
ratus,  effort  was  made  to  assure  a  minimum  of  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  fraud.  “The  receiving  instruments  which 
were  to  be  put  in  motion,  and  the  surface  on  which 
they  rested,  were  generally,  after  the  first  seance,  so 
firmly  fixed,  that,  in  spite  of  all  her  efforts,  Paladino 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  p.  268. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


105 


could  scarcely  even  move  them.  ...  I  passed  the 
electric  wire  and  the  tubes  through  holes  made  in  the 
wood,”  says  Bottazzi,  ‘‘or  I  arranged  them  so  that 
they  only  passed  over  a  very  small  portion  of  the  sur¬ 
face.”* 1 

“The  mediumistic  chain  was  not  always  strictly 
maintained.  In  addition  to  two  breaks  demanded  by 
Eusapia,  Bottazzi,  Galeotti  and  Scarpa  frequently  rose 
from  their  seats  and  left  the  room,  either  to  put  the 
cylinders  in  motion  in  the  neighboring  room,  or  to 
look  for  some  string,  asked  for  by  Eusapia,  or  for 
some  other  reason. 

“Our  seances  have  always  been  accompanied  by  a 
certain  amount  of  movement  on  the  part  of  those 
present;  a  convinced  spiritist  who  was  present  at  the 
seventh  seance  was  scandalized  by  it ;  but  this  was  very 
natural.  Spiritists  attend  with  their  souls  already  at¬ 
tuned  to  admiration;  their  faith  is  absolute  (so  much 
the  better  for  them  and  such  as  they),  and  nothing 
disturbs  them.  We,  on  the  contrary,  were  disturbed 
by  doubts,  and  I  am  not  even  now,  as  I  write,  free  from 
them,  after  seven  seances  in  which  I  have  seen  the  oc¬ 
currence  of  phenomena  in  which  fraud  could  play  no 
part.”2 

“Often,  Mine.  Paladino,  wheni  completely  entranced, 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  contact  of  only  two  con¬ 
trollers,  but  she  asked  in  a  faint  voice  for  the  hand  of 
another  neighboring  sitter,  or  she  desired  that  a  hand 
should  be  placed  on  her  knees,  and  that  she  might  lay 
her  forehead  on  the  head  of  one  of  the  controllers.”3 


'Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  pp.  269-70. 

iIbici.,  pp.  378-9.  3Ibid.,  p.  380. 


106 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


We  cannot  follow  those  momentous  sittings  in  detail, 
but  merely  outline  briefly  a  few  of  the  more  wonderful 
phenomena  that  occurred.  We  must  remember  that 
even  the  simplest  poltergeist  manifestations  that  oc¬ 
curred — the  shaking  of  the  table,  the  setting  in  motion 
of  a  metronome,  the  throwing  of  small  objects  about 
the  room  spontaneously,  the  beating  of  a  drum — even 
these  phenomena  are  wonderful  enough  when  we  con¬ 
sider  the  rigidity  of  the  tests  imposed  by  these  zealous 
but  skeptical  savants.  “We  obliged  her  to  do  things 
she  had  never  done  before,”  says  Bottazzi  naively ;  and 
surely  they  did ! 

The  Startling  Materializations  Produced  at  Naples 

But  these  phenomena  sank  into  comparative  insig¬ 
nificance,  for,  at  the  third  sitting,  in  plain  sight,  a  small 
table  rose  spontaneously  and  floated  in  midair,  while, 
as  Bottazzi  notes,  “we  watched  it  in  amazement” ;  and, 
at  this  same  seance,  at  which  Mme.  Bottazzi  was  pres¬ 
ent,  a  great  black  hand  and  arm  crept  slowly  out  from 
behind  the  curtain  of  the  cabinet,  lightly  touched  Mme. 
Bottazzi,  who  happened  to  be  nearest,  frightening  her 
severely,  then  apparently  dissolved  into  thin  air. 

Here  was  a  phenomenon  which  defied  explanation, 
which  dazed  belief.  Imagine  the  impression  it  made 
on  these  sober,  hard-headed  men  of  science,  apparently 
face  to  face  with  what  an  hour  before  they  might  well 
have  called  “impossible.” 

“We  felt  the  sensation  as  of  contact  with  a  realhand,” 
says  Bottazzi,  reporting  the  phenomenon,  “bony,  nerv¬ 
ous,  often  neither  hot  nor  cold,  but  sometimes  hot;  a 
hand,  in  fact,  of  flesh  and  bones  and  blood.  To  whom 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


107 


does  this  hand  belong,  which  is  generally  encountered 
more  than  half  a  yard  away  from  the  medium’s  head, 
and  while  her  visible  hands  are  rigorously  controlled  by 
her  two  neighbors  ? 

“Is  it  the  hand  of  a  monstrous  long  arm  which  liber¬ 
ates  itself  from  the  medium’s  body,  then  dissolves,  to 
‘materialize’  afresh  afterward  ? 

“Is  it  something  analogous  to  the  pteropod  of  an 
amoeba,  which  projects  itself  from  the  body,  then  re¬ 
treats  into  it  and  appears  again  in  another  place? 

“Mystery  l”1 

At  a  later  sitting  this  same  great  black  hand  came 
out  from  the  curtain  and  gently  grasped  Bottazzi  by 
the  nape  of  the  neck.  At  this  seance,  Dr.  Porro,  the 
astronomer,  was  present.  “Letting  go  Professor  Por- 
ro’s  hand,”  says  Bottazzi  (Porro  was  next  him  in  the 
circle),  “I  felt  for  this  ghostly  hand  and  clasped  it. 
It  was  a  left  hand,  neither  hot  nor  cold,  with  rough, 
bony  Ungers,  which  dissolved  under  pressure.  It  did 
not  retire  by  producing  a  sensation  of  withdrawal;  it 
dissolved,  dematcrialized,  melted.” 

These  astral  hands — “etheric  hands”  is  the  term 
Lombroso  uses  to  describe  them — are  not  always  visi¬ 
ble;  yet  they  would  seem  to  be  the  active  instruments 
in  the  production  of  the  poltergeist  phenomena.  A 
mandolin  plays  itself ;  the  keys  of  a  typewriter  strike 
of  themselves  spontaneously;  an  invisible  something 
ripples  over  the  keys  of  a  piano ;  an  electric  light  switch 
is  closed  repeatedly  (a  switch  several  feet  from  Eu- 
sapia,  while  her  limbs  are  carefully  controlled)  ;  a  tiny 
electric  dynamo  is  wound  up  and  set  going;  a  vase  of 


1Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  pp.  285-6. 


108 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


flowers  is  transported  about  the  room.  These  things 
happen,  are  attested  to  by  unimpeachable  witnesses. 
What  causes  them?  “Astral  hands?”  Hands  formed 
of  some  substance  of  which  we  know  nothing,  shot  out 
from  the  body  of  the  medium  at  will  in  different  direc¬ 
tions  and  at  lightning  speed? 

“What  a  colossal  fabrication !”  the  reader  may  ex¬ 
claim.  “Why,  that’s  absolutely  impossible !” 

Impossible?  The  scientist  is  coming  to  the  point 
where  he  no  longer  dares  call  anything  “impossible.” 
Impossible?  when  these  pseudo  limbs  have  been  seen 
and  handled,  not  once,  but  repeatedly ! 

Dr.  Giuseppe  Venzano  saw  a  monstrous,  shadowy 
arm  spring  out  spontaneously  from  Eusapia’s  shoulder 
and  grasp  a  glass  of  water ;  three  other  scientists  pres¬ 
ent  simultaneously  witnessed  the  same  thing. 

“At  another  time,”  says  Bottazzi,  “later  on,  the  same 
hand  [the  black  hand  of  which  mention  has  already 
been  made]  was  placed  on  my  right  forearm — I  saw 
a  human  hand,  this  time  of  natural  color,  and  I  felt 
with  mine  the  back  of  a  lukewarm  hand,  rough  and 
nervous.  The  hand  dissolved  (/  saw  it  with  my  own 
eyes )  and  retreated  as  if  into  Mme.  Paladino’s  body, 
describing  a  curve.”1 

Is  there  anything  hesitating  or  equivocal  about  that 
statement?  Bottazzi  saw  it,  and,  lest  he  alone  might 
have  been  deceived,  a  dozen  others  saw  similar  phe¬ 
nomena. 

Fontenay  gives  a  more  detailed  and  significant  de¬ 
scription  of  these  materialized  hands  in  their  typical 
form.  “The  materialization  was  incomplete,”  he  says, 


1Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  p.  413. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


109 


“or  seemed  so  to  me.  It  did  not  appear  very  solid,  and, 
although  the  apparition  was  very  rapid,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  the  fingers  were  not  all  distinct  and  separate 
from  each  other.  I  had  the  impression  of  an  enormous 
crab’s  claw  rather  than  of  a  real  hand.  Imagine  a 
lined  mitten,  or  rather  a  very  large  hand,  of  which  the 
thumb  and  forefinger  were  pressed  together,  and  the 
three  other  fingers  also  pressed  together. 

“This  apparition  was  seen  and  described  as  I  have 
just  described  it,  with  very  slight  variations,  by  the 
majority  of  those  present.”1 

The  hands,  we  are  told,  were  of  various  sizes,  some 
gigantic  in  dimensions,  some  normal ;  and  lest  there 
be  any  mistake  about  their  objective  reality,  Bottazzi 
had  photographs  taken  of  them.2 

On  another  occasion,  near  the  close  of  a  sitting,  the 
cabinet  was  opened  somewhat  inadvertently,  and  the 
ghostly  fragments  of  arms  and  legs  were  found  lying 
inside. 

“The  apparitions,  or  materializations,”  says  Bottazzi, 
at  another  tme,  “were  numerous  and  multiple.  .  .  . 

I  saw  hands  and  closed  fists  appear  over  Mme.  Pala- 
dino’s  head,  in  the  opening  between  the  curtains  ;  some¬ 
times  they  were  of  ordinary  size,  at  others  at  least 
three  times  larger  than  Mme.  Paladino’s  hand  and  fist. 
Twice  I  advanced  my  hand  rapidly  to  seize  them,  chief¬ 
ly  because  those  farthest  off  affirmed  that  these  were 
objects  presented  by  the  usual  invisible  hand;  but  I 


'Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  7,  p.  182. 
sSome  of  similar  photographs  of  “materialized  hands’’  are 
reproduced  in  this  volume. 


110 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


was  always  too  late;  the  apparition  dissolved,  and  I 
found  the  space  vacant.”1 

At  the  eighth  sitting  Eusapia  was  controlled  in  a  way 
that  would  seem  to  destroy  any  lingering  shred  of  an 
opportunity  for  fraud.  Eleavy  cords  were  bound  tight¬ 
ly  about  her  wrists,  these  were  led  through  iron  rings 
sunk  in  the  floor,  and  the  ends  sealed  with  lead  seals, 
similar  to  those  used  in  this  country  to  secure  the 
doors  of  freight  cars.  Tightly  bound  as  she  was,  so 
tightly  bound  as  to  be  hardly  able  to  move,  other  pre¬ 
cautions  were  not  relaxed  in  the  slightest.  Yet,  for¬ 
tunately  for  the  adherents  of  spiritualism,  there  were 
continued  levitations  and  striking  materializations  of 
Eusapia’s  astral  limbs. 

Galeotti,  who  happened  to  be  holding  Eusapia’s  right 
arm,  suddenly  cried :  “I  see  two  left  arms  identical 
in  appearance.  One  is  on  the  little  table,  and  it  is 
that  which  Mme.  Bottazzi  touches.  [Mme.  Bottazzi 
was  “controlling”  the  medium  on  the  other  side.]  The 
other  seems  to  come  out  of  the  medium’s  shoulder,  to 
approach  and  touch  Mme.  Bottazzi,  and  then  return 
and  melt  into  the  medium’s  body  again.  This  is  not 
an  hallucination.  I  am  awake.  I  am  conscious  of  two 
simultaneous  visual  sensations,  which  I  experience 
when  Mme.  Bottazzi  says  she  has  been  touched.”2 

Another  remarkable  phenomenon  in  connection  with 
Eusapia’s  manifestations  of  which  mention  should  be 
made  was  the  strange  lights  which  appeared.  In  the 
fourth  sitting,  simultaneously  with  the  materializations, 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  pp.  383-4. 

2Ibid.,  p.  422. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Ill 


little  curling  tongues  of  flame,  pale  mauve  in  color,  had 
floated  across  the  curtains  of  the  cabinet. 

At  other  times  these  flames  appeared  above  Eusapia’s 
head.  “They  seemed  to  me,”  says  Bottazzi,  “like  little 
flames,  in  size  like  those  of  an  ordinary  candle,  but 
shorter  and  not  of  yellow  light,  but  rather  violet,  more 
luminous  in  the  center,  more  attenuated  at  the 
periphery ;  they  seemed  to  disengage  themselves  from 
the  body  of  the  medium,  then  rose  with  a  slow,  undu¬ 
lating  movement,  dissolving  into  space.”1 

At  the  Turin  sittings  lights  appeared  which  also 
“started  from  the  medium’s  head,  but  they  were  pro¬ 
jected  like  a  minute  Roman  candle.”2 

Is  This  Psychic  Energy  a  Form  of  Radio-Activity? 

What  was  the  nature  and  cause  of  these  luminous 
appearances,  not  uncommon  at  spiritualistic  seances, 
but  rarely,  if  ever,  before  under  expert  scientific  ob¬ 
servation?  In  the  light  of  the  then  recent  discoveries 
of  the  Curies  the  answer  came  almost  spontaneously : 
Might  they  not  be  some  form  of  radio-activity? 

And  experiment  seemed  to  confirm  the  suggestion. 

Flammarion  noted  a  “diaphanous  luminosity”  issuing 
from  the  hole,  as  well  as  round  the  fingers,  almost  form¬ 
ing  “a  second  misshapen  outline.”  Lombroso,  in  cor¬ 
roboration,  noted  that  by  merely  holding  a  photo¬ 
graphic  plate,  masked  by  three  thicknesses  of  light¬ 
proof  paper,  in  the  medium’s  hand,  an  X-ray-like  print 
of  her  index  finger  was  made  on  the  plate,  as  if  there 
was  radio-activity  therein.  Simultaneously,  her  hand 

1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  p.  383. 

'Ibid.,  p.  308. 


112  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

shuddered  convulsively  and  she  went  into  the  trance 
state. 

Lombroso,  in  fact,  goes  even  further,  and,  in  a  care¬ 
ful  summing  up  of  the  Paladino  phenomena  recently 
published,  advances  the  daring  theory  that  the  spiritual 
agents  themselves  are  composed  of  radio-active  mat¬ 
ter.  The*theory,  coming  from  such  a  source,  is  indeed 
epoch-making,  and  his  statement  of  it  deserves  to  be 
quoted  in  his  own  words. 

“This  is  the  first  occasion,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,” 
he  says,  “that  we  have  come  into  intimate  experimental 
contact  with  these  phenomena — I  will  even  say  with 
the  organism  called  spirit — with  these  transitory,  im¬ 
palpable  representatives  of  the  life  beyond,  the  existence 
of  which  is  both  maintained  and  disputed,  through  fear 
or  through  respect  for  universal  tradition,  renewed,  as 
it  is,  by  thousands  of  facts  which  occur  constantly 
under  our  very  eyes.  And  we  find,  as  I  already  fore¬ 
saw  some  years  ago,  that  these  bodies  belong  to  that 
other  state  of  matter,  the  radiant  state,  which  has  now 
a  sure  foothold  in  science,  and  which  is  the  only  hy¬ 
pothesis  which  can  reconcile  the  ancient,  universal  be¬ 
lief  in  the  persistence  of  some  manifestation  of  life 
after  death,  with  the  results  of  science.”1 

In  fact,  wonderful  as  these  phenomena  seem,  their 
trend  seems  not  at  all  in  support  of  a  spiritualistic 
hypothesis.  Those  that  know  most  are  still  chary  of 
explanation,  but  the  greater  part  of  the  explanations 
that  have  been  attempted  have  been  along  biological 
lines. 

The  idea  of  an  “astral  body,”  of  the  power  of  the 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  7,  p.  179. 


Colonel  Albert  De  Rochas 

Propounder  of  the  theory  of  the  “astral  double”  and  noted  for  his  work 
in  the  photography  of  “etheric”  bodies. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


113 


human  personality  to  project  to  a  distance  a  more  or 
less  substantial  image  of  itself,  is  not  a  new  one  to  the 
student  of  occultism.  Already,  too,  in  the  study  of  hyp¬ 
notism,  De  Rochas  had  taught  the  possibility  of  what 
he  termed  the  “fluidic  double.”  He  claimed  that  in 
the  trance  state  the  psychic  herself,  or  the  hypnotizer  if 
the  trance  be  hypnotic,  is  able  to  externalize  limbs  or 
even  the  complete  body  of  the  entranced  subject.  This 
“astral”  externalization  is  visible  to  the  subject  as  a 
cloud  of  smoky  vapor ;  to  the  others  present  it  is  gen¬ 
erally  invisible. 

Yet  De  Rochas  claims  to  demonstrate  the  objective 
existence  of  the  astral  body.  For  instance,  unnoticed 
by  the  psychic,  he  pinches  the  air  where  he  thinks  the 
astral  body  may  be  floating,  and  there  is  a  resulting 
reflex  on  the  corresponding  portion  of  the  psychic’s 
body.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that 
Morselli  has  discovered  with  Eusapia  a  marked  “ex¬ 
ternalization  of  sensibility,”  has  succeeded  in  making 
her  feel  pin  pricks  in  the  air  (her  eyes  being  closed), 
“an  inch  or  two  from  her  skin.”1 

The  “fluidic  double”  of  De  Rochas,  as  a  whole,  or 
in  parts,  forms  itself  in  obedience  to  the  thought  of 
the  medium  or  of  those  present.  It  moves  with  marvel¬ 
ous  precision,  regardless  of  darkness  (in  fact,  light 
seems  inimical  to  its  production),  and  with  wonderful 
swiftness. 

We  have  not  yet  considered  one  remarkable  feature, 
the  synchronism  in  movement  between  Eusapia’s  invisi¬ 
ble  (or  visible)  “astral”  limbs  and  her  natural  body. 
This  synchronism  had  been  noted  several  years  before. 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  May,  1907,  p.  345. 


114 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


At  the  earliest  Naples  sittings  Flammarion  noticed 
that  almost  imperceptible  tremors  of  Eusapia’s  hand 
coincided  with  blows  struck  several  feet  away,  appar¬ 
ently  by  an  invisible  hand.  Somewhat  later  it  was 
recorded  that  the  impressions  of  hands  in  clay  syn¬ 
chronized  with  little  convulsive  pushes  of  Eusapia’s 
hands. 

But  in  these  astounding  Bottazzi  sittings  the  corre¬ 
spondence  was  too  complete  to  be  mere  coincidence. 
When  the  little  table  before  mentioned  commenced  to 
move  about  the  room  it  was  seen  that  each  little  jerk¬ 
ing  movement  of  the  table  was  accompanied  by  a  con¬ 
vulsive  jerk  from  Eusapia.  Says  Bottazzi  on  this 
point:  “Each  advance  of  the  table  corresponded  with 
the  most  perfect  synchronism  with  the  push  of  Eusa¬ 
pia’s  legs  against  Jona’s  knees — in  other  words  she 
really  executed  movements  identical  with  those  that 
she  would  have  made  had  she  been  pushing  the  table 
with  her  visible  limbs.” 

At  another  time  “a  glass  was  flung  from  the  cabinet 
by  these  invisible  agencies,  and  this  fling  coincided 
exactly  with  a  kick  which  Paladino  gave  to  Jona,  as 
if  the  same  will  governed  both  movements.” 

At  another  time  “Eusapia  said  distinctly:  T  have 
touched  the  smoked  cylinder ;  look  at  my  fingers.’  She 
held  out  her  one  hand,  then  the  other  toward  us.  We 
carefully  examined  her  fingers :  there  was  no  trace  of 
smoke  on  them.  On  the  cylinder,  however,  was  very 
clearly  visible  the  impression  of  little  finger  tips,  like 
those  of  Eusapia.”1 

At  another  time  Professor  de  Amicis  was  drawn  to- 


1Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  pp.  404-5. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


115 


ward  the  cabinet  with  some  force  by  an  invisible  arm. 
As  he  approached,  the  curtain  bellied  out  and  an  in¬ 
visible  face  was  pressed  against  his  and  invisible  lips 
kissed  his  own.  “At  the  same  time,”  says  Bottazzi 
significantly,  “Eusapia’s  lips  moved  as  if  to  kiss,  and 
she  made  the  sound  of  kissing,  which  we  all  heard.” 

During  the  fifth  sitting  occurred  the  mandolin  play¬ 
ing  already  mentioned.  The  instrument  lay  before  them 
in  full  light  several  feet  from  where  Eusapia  sat ;  yet 
as  the  strings  moved  so  moved  her  finger  tips  in  unison. 
“It  would  be  necessary  to  have  Paladino’s  fingers  in 
the  palm  of  one’s  hand,”  says  Bottazzi,  and  it  was  he 
who  had  them  so  on  this  occasion,  “to  be  convinced 
that  the  evolutions,  twangings  of  the  strings,  etc.,  all 
synchronized  with  the  very  delicate  movements  of  her 
fingers,  and  with  the  dragging  and  pushing  movements 
of  the  medium’s  hand,  as  if  she  were  directed  in  the 
execution  of  these  movements  by  a  will  which  knew 
the  effect  to  be  produced.  These  were  not  irregular, 
impulsive,  disordered  movements ;  they  were  precise 
and  coordinated,  whether  they  were  movements  of 
one  finger  or  of  several  fingers,  and  were  identical  with 
those  which  we  should  make  if  we  wished  to  seize 
or  to  vibrate  the  strings  with  precision  and  delicacy.”1 

In  short,  as  Bottazzi  himself  says,  “Whatever  may 
be  the  mediumistic  phenomenon  produced,  there  is 
almost  always  at  the  same  time  movement  of  one  or 
several  parts  of  the  medium’s  body.” 

Moreover,  there  seemed  to  be  with  these  “astral” 
limbs  of  Eusapia’s  a  continuous  and  very  natural  proc¬ 
ess  of  education  to  unaccustomed  uses.  She  spoke  as 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  pp.  389-90. 


116 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


though  they  were  veritable  parts  of  her  organism,  but 
parts  which  were  often  inadequate  and  fumbling,  the 
limbs  of  a  child  learning  to  walk,  the  fingers  of  a 
pianist  training  in  dexterity. 

“During  the  seance  Professor  Galeotti  and  I  in¬ 
vited  in  Italian,  in  French,  and  in  English  (these 

are  small  concessions  that  it  is  necessary  to  make  to 
Eusapia’s  deep-rooted  predilections),  to  make  the  rod 
of  the  metronome  move,  to  lower  the  balance  and  to 
press  the  ball  of  India-rubber ;  we  afterward  explained 
how  these  objects  were  made,  and  what  movements 
should  be  made  with  the  hands  in  order  to  move,  to 
lower,  and  to  press  them.  In  vain !  She  excused  her¬ 
self,  saying  that  she  did  not  find,  or  that  she  did  not 
see  these  objects,  or  that  she  did  not  know  how  to  do  it. 
Then  she  complained  that  the  objects  were  too  far 
off,  that  she  could  not  reach  them.  .  .  .” 

“In  the  following  seances,  as  we  shall  see,”  says 
Bottazzi,  “Eusapia  obeyed  these  same  orders ;  the  but¬ 
tons  were  pressed,  the  rod  of  the  metronome  was  set 
swinging,  etc.,  and  the  fact  that  we  did  not  obtain 
these  results  in  the  first  seances  shows,  in  my  opinion, 
that  Eusapia  needed  to  learn  how  to  make  these  move¬ 
ments,  with  which  her  invisible  hands  were  unfamiliar, 
just  as  she  would  have  to  learn  to  make  them  with 
her  visible  hands.”1 

Eusapia’s  Manifestations  and  the  Problem  of  the  Future  Life 

So  far,  therefore,  from  Eusapia’s  manifestations 
helping  to  answer  the  question,  “Are  the  dead  alive?” 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  pp.  277-8. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  117 

they  seem  at  first  glance  but  to  render  the  issue  more 
confusing. 

Are  discarnate  (disembodied)  spirits  necessary  to 
an  explanation  of  Eusapia’s  poltergeist  phenomena  and 
materializations?  “Not  at  all,”  reply  Morselli,  Bot- 
tazzi,  Porro,  Foa,  Galeotti  and  most  of  the  eminent  in¬ 
vestigators  who  have  witnessed  her  exploits.  More 
probably,  say  they,  the  explanation  is  purely  biological ; 
we  have  here  to  do  with  hitherto  unsuspected  powers 
of  the  bodily  organism,  powers  very  wonderful  and  im¬ 
portant,  but  not  all  mystical  or  in  any  respect  spiritual. 

“One  thing  is  certain,”  says  Bottazzi,  for  instance, 
“that  it  is  not  a  being,  foreign  to  the  organism  of  the 
medium,  who  produces  the  mediumistic  phenomena ; 
because  she  herself  is  aware  of  them,  and  she  either 
indicates  this  by  her  words  or  it  becomes  apparent 
through  the  relation  which  the  phenomena  bear  to  other 
accompanying  incidents.”1 

On  the  other  hand,  the  most  eminent  of  them  all, 
Lombroso  himself,  like  our  own  Crookes,  maintains 
now  that  some  theory  of  discarnate  spirits  is  the  only 
one  adequately  explaining  all  the  phenomena.  In  sup¬ 
port  of  this  view,  Lombroso  relates  the  following  sig¬ 
nificant  manifestation : 

“One  day  Eusapia  said  to  M.  R. :  ‘This  phantom 
comes  for  you.’  She  then  fell  at  once  into  a  profound 
trance.  A  woman  of  great  beauty  appeared,  who  had 
died  two  years  before ;  her  arm  and  shoulders  were 
covered  by  the  edge  of  the  curtain,  in  such  a  way, 
however,  as  to  indicate  the  form.  Her  head  was  cov¬ 
ered  with  a  very  fine  veil ;  she  breathed  a  warm  breath 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  6,  p.  397. 


118 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


against  the  back  of  M.  R.’s  hand,  carried  his  hand  up 
to  her  hair,  and  very  gently  bit  his  fingers.  Meanwhile, 
Eusapia  was  heard  uttering  prolonged  groans,  showing 
painful  effort,  which  ceased  when  the  phantom  disap¬ 
peared.  The  apparition  was  perceived  by  two  others 
present,  and  returned  several  times.  An  attempt  was 
then  made  to  photograph  it.  Eusapia  and  John  con¬ 
sented,  but  the  phantom,  by  a  sign  with  the  head  and 
hands,  indicated  to  us  that  she  objected,  and  twice 
broke  the  photographic  plate. 

“The  request  was  then  made  that  a  mold  of  her 
hands  might  be  obtained,  and  although  Eusapia  and 
John  both  promised  to  make  her  comply  with  our  de¬ 
sire,  they  did  not  succeed.  In  the  last  seance,  Eusapia 
gave  a  more  formal  promise ;  the  three  usual  raps  in 
the  table  endorsed  the  consent,  and  we  indeed  heard  a 
hand  plunged  in  the  liquid  in  the  cabinet.  After  some 
seconds,  R.  had  in  his  hands  a  block  of  paraffin,  with 
a  complete  mold,  but  an  etheric  hand  advanced  from 
the  curtain  and  dashed  it  to  pieces. 

“This  concerned — as  we  afterward  learned — a  wom¬ 
an  who  had  a  strong  reason  for  leaving  no  proof  of 
her  identity.  It  is  evident,  therefore  .  .  .  that  a 

third  will  can  intervene  in  spiritistic  phenomena,  which 
is  neither  that  of  ‘John,’  nor  of  Eusapia,  nor  of  those 
present  at  the  seance,  but  is  opposed  to  all  of  them.”1 

A  little  later  he  adds:  “It  is  true  that  the  majority 
of  the  motor  phenomena,  and  the  most  intelligent  phe¬ 
nomena,  start  from  the  neighborhood  of  the  medium, 
especially  on  the  left  side,  which  (she  being  left- 
handed)  is  the  strongest  in  the  trance.  It  is  true  that 


1 Annals  of  Psychical  Science,  v.  7,  pp.  175-6. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


119 


these  efforts  are  preceded  by  synchronous  movements 
on  the  part  of  the  medium ;  it  is  true  that  sometimes 
an  ethereal  body  which  serves  as  an  arm,  and  which 
moves  the  objects,  has  been  seen  to  issue  from  her 
skirt  or  from  her  back,  in  full  light;  but  it  does  not 
follow  because  the  medium  is  a  great  factor,  even  the 
greatest  factor,  in  these  efforts  that  they  are  exclusively 
her  own  doing.”1 

But  even  admitting  “discarnate  spirits”  as  an,  or 
even  the,  explanation,  does  not  assume  necessarily,  we 
must  remember,  that  these  discarnate  spirits  are  the 
spirits  of  the  dead.  That  would  still  remain  to  be 
proved — the  “problem  of  identity,”  the  final  problem. 


'■Annals  of  Psychical  Science ,  v.  7,  p.  177. 


“SPIRITUALISTIC  PHENOMENA  ARE  AUTHENTIC’ 


It  would  require  a  volume  to  demonstrate  that  the  dead  have 
a  fragmentary  existence  which  completes  itself  in  the  presence 
of  the  medium. 

I  am  just  finishing  a  work  which  contains  many  experi¬ 
ments  and  graphic  demonstrations,  together  with  my  psycho¬ 
logical  and  chemical  studies.  This  book  will  be  published  in 
English. 

But  to  sum  up  in  a  few  words,  I  have  attended  at  least  a 
hundred  spiritualistic  seances  at  Genoa,  at  Turin,  at  Naples 
and  at  Venice. 

I  am  perfectly  convinced  of  the  authenticity  of  the  phe¬ 
nomena  produced  by  the  medium  Eusapia  Paladino.  Never¬ 
theless,  when  she  finds  herself  in  a  condition  not  favorable 
to  the  production  of  these  phenomena,  such  as  raising  a  table 
off  the  floor  and  moving  objects  about  the  room,  she  does  not 
hesitate  to  resort  to  tricks.  This  is  partly  due  to  a  great 
desire  to  please  those  who  expect  something  from  her. 

Also,  I  am  convinced  that  before  many  years  this  celebrated 
medium  will  be  incapable  of  producing  them  at  all.  Her 
power  is  diminishing  day  by  day.  The  spiritualistic  force 
with  which  she  is  gifted  is  becoming  extinct.  I  do  not  make 
this  statement  by  guess,  but  by  actual  observation  of  her. 

Already,  at  the  present  time,  she  materializes  but  rarely, 
whereas  a  few  years  ago  she  did  this  with  comparative  ease. 
At  the  actual  moment,  also,  her  materializations  have  become 
vague  in  outline,  fragmentary,  a  sort  of  phosphorescence  diffi¬ 
cult  to  distinguish. 

As  to  the  explanation  of  her  manifestations,  Eusapia  Pala¬ 
dino  is  a  confirmed  hysteric,  owing,  probably,  to  an  accident — 
to  a  blow  which  she  received  on  the  head,  in  the  right  temple, 
when  she  was  a  child  of  three  years.  The  scar  remains,  a 
deep  hole  in  the  temple.  During  her  trances  there  exhales 
from  this  hole  in  the  temple  a  gaseous  vapor. 

As  to  whether  science  can  rend  asunder  the  mystery  which 
120 


Dr.  Cesar  Lombroso 

Alienist  Professor  of  Psychiatry,  University  of  Turin,  founder  of 
the  science  of  criminology,  and  one  of  the  foremost  investigators  of 
Eusapia  Paladino. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


121 


surrounds  the  production  of  these  phenomena,  I  will  say  of 
certain  of  them,  yes;  of  others,  no,  not  yet.  Science  has  not 
made  the  necessary  advance  to  affirm  positively  whether  they 
are  a  reality,  or  whether  they  may  be  due  to  trick  or  possibly 
to  the  hallucination  of  those  who  witness  them. 

But  as  to  the  moving  of  objects  at  a  distance  without  con¬ 
tact,  such  as  raising  a  table  from  the  floor  or  the  moving  of 
objects  about  the  room — such  as  a  chair,  for  instance — in  my 
opinion  there  is  no  longer  any  room  for  doubt  as  to  their 
authenticity.  There  are  a  number  of  instantaneous  photo¬ 
graphs  in  existence,  for  the  matter  of  that,  which  speak  for 
themselves. 

These  were  taken  after  every  precaution  had  been  taken 
by  the  scientific  men  present  to  prevent  fraud.  The  medium, 
Eusapia  Paladino,  had  both  her  legs  and  her  hands  tied,  while, 
for  further  safety,  an  investigator  sat  on  each  side  of  her 
holding  her  hands  and  with  a  foot  pressed  down  firmly  on 
each  of  her  feet.  And  yet  the  photograph  taken  at  the  instant 
shows  the  table  almost  twelve  inches  ofi  the  floor! 

But  I  have  seen  other  things  more  wonderful  than  this;  I 
was  present  one  day  when  a  pot  of  flowers  weighing  six 
pounds,  which  was  sitting  on  the  table  around  which  were 
grouped  the  scientific  men,  suddenly  lifted  itself  in  the  air, 
making  a  circle  over  our  heads,  and  then  settled  down  near 
the  spot  from  which  it  had  risen. 

On  another  occasion,  at  Venice,  I  assisted  at  a  most  strange 
occurrence. 

By  the  aid  of  the  medium  we  invoked  the  spirit  of  a  defunct 

countess,  Countess  M - .  The  spirit  was  very  long  in  making 

her  appearance,  and  when  she  did  she  quickly  disappeared, 
leaving  a  message  written  on  the  table  in  Latin.  It  read: 
“There  is  a  dirty  pig  among  you.”  We  were  stupefied.  And 
again  we  begged  the  spirit  to  return  and  explain.  When  she 
did,  she  wrote:  “I  will  not  come  again  until  he  leaves  the 
room.” 

Naturally,  we  all  remained,  as  no  one  was  willing  to  pose 
as  the  pig. 

Finally  she  came  and  indicated  the  one  meant.  He  was  a 
well-known  literary  man,  known  and  respected  by  us  all.  For 


122 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


a  moment  he  was  nonplussed.  Then  a  light  broke  over  his 
face.  In  his  wanderings  he  had  picked  up  a  book  for  its  rare 
binding.  It  was  an  old  but  very  obscene  brochure.  He  had 
it  in  his  pocket. 

As  to  the  levitations  of  the  table,  it  has  been  proved  that 
the  weight  of  Paladino  increases  during  the  time  the  table 
is  in  the  air  exactly  the  weight  of  the  table,  although  there 
are  a  hundred  witnesses  ready  to  take  oath  that  she  does 
not  touch  it.  And  I  am  willing  to  make  a  deposition  that  the 
table  rises  in  the  air,  as  well  as  to  the  moving  of  objects  at 
a  distance,  without  contact,  and  that  this  is  done  honestly, 
without  any  trick  whatsoever. 

—Cesar  Lombroso. 


CHAPTER  VI 


OBSESSION  AND  DUAL  PERSONALITY 

It  is  a  rather  interesting  fact  that  three  very  emi¬ 
nent  scientists,  speaking,  so  far  as  I  know,  independ¬ 
ently,  have  used  the  same  figure  of  speech  to  denote 
those  extensions  of  human  consciousness  which  we  are 
about  to  study. 

The  scientist  knows  that  all  our  forces — heat,  light, 
electricity — are  merely  vibrations  of  the  ether  at  widely 
differing  velocities.  If  the  atmosphere  vibrates  a  hun¬ 
dred  or  a  thousand  times  a  second,  and  the  vibration 
strikes  the  drum  of  our  ear,  we  call  the  effect  “sound.” 
If  the  ether  vibrates  a  certain  number  of  million  times 
a  second  the  vibrations  will  cause  a  steel  needle  to 
swing — we  call  that  effect  “electricity.”  When  vibra¬ 
tions,  a  million  times  faster  yet,  strike  the  retina  of 
our  eye,  we  say  that  they  are  “light.”  Sound,  elec¬ 
tricity,  heat,  light — they  are  all  but  vibrations  of  the 
ether,  growing  inconceivably  faster  and  faster  as  we  go 
up  the  ascending  scale. 

Ten  years  ago  scientists  thought  they  had  reached 
the  end  of  the  scale:  now  they  see  no  end.  Millions 
of  times  a  second  faster  than  light  are  vibrations  that 
we  call  the  X-ray;  even  faster  are  the  “N-rays;”  and 
faster  and  faster  yet  the  radiations  from  radium,  and 
other  wonderful  forces  that  men  are  finding  in  exist¬ 
ence  as  they  reach  out  into  the  Unknown. 

123 


124 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


But  even  as  the  whole  great  scale  fades  away  at 
the  end  into  something  still  beyond  our  grasp,  so  each 
part  of  it,  distinct  by  itself,  is  not  continuous  with  the 
other  parts. 

Between  the  vibrations  that  we  call  “electricity,”  and 
the  vibrations  that  we  call  “heat,”  we  imagine  there 
must  be  other  vibrations  filling  up  the  gap :  but  we  do 
not  knoiv,  simply  because  we  have  no  senses  that  can 
comprehend  them.  The  spectrum  is  just  such  a  little 
scale.  Below  the  darkest  red  at  the  lower  end  we  can¬ 
not  see:  at  the  other  end,  as  the  vibrations  get  faster 
and  faster  thru  the  orange,  the  blue  and  the  violet,  is 
another  unknown  gap.  That  is,  we  cannot  see  it:  but 
surely  the  vibrations  are  there.  Some  of  them,  for  in¬ 
stance,  that  we  have  never  seen,  and  never  can  see, 
mark  their  presence  on'  a  photographic  plate.  “The 
limits  of  our  spectrum,”  as  Myers  says,  “do  not  inhere 
in  the  sun  that  shines,  but  in  the  eye  that  marks  his 
shining.  Beyond  each  end  of  that  prismatic  ribbon  are 
ether-waves  of  which  our  retina  takes  no  cognizance. 
Beyond  the  red  end  come  waves  whose'  potency  we 
still  recognize,  but  as  heat  and  not  as  light.  Beyond 
the  violet  end  are  waves  still  more  mysterious ;  whose 
very  existence  man,  for  ages,  never  suspected,  and 
whose  intimate  potencies  are  still  but  obscurely 
known.”1 

That  is  the  figure  of  speech  to  which  I  at  first  re¬ 
ferred.  Just  as  there  are  limits  at  either  end  of  the 
scale  o*f  vibrations  beyond  which  our  own  senses  can 
tell  us  nothing,  so  may  there  be  psychic  forces  at  work 
beyond  the  limits  of  our  consciousness.  These  are 


’Myers :  Human  Personality,  p.  18. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


125 


seemingly  supernatural  to  us,  when  by  some  chance  we 
witness  their  effect,  but  really  are  no  more  supernatural 
than  the  X-ray  that  pierces  the  solid  body,  or  the  in¬ 
visible  ultra-violet  ray  that  marks  the  photographic 
plate. 

Dr.  Osier,  one  of  the  three  scientists  to  whom  I  re¬ 
ferred,  in  one  of  his  Ingersoll  lectures  on  immortality, 
said:  “There  is  much  to  suggest,  and  it  is  a  pleasing 
fancy,  that  outside  our  consciousness  lie  fields  of  psy¬ 
chical  activity  analogous  to  the  invisible  yet  powerful 
rays  of  the  spectrum.  The  thousand  activities  of  the 
bodily  machine,  some  of  them  noisy  enough  at  times, 
do  not  in  health  obtrude  themselves  upon  our  con¬ 
sciousness,  and  just  as  there  is  this  enormous  subcon¬ 
scious  field  of  vegetable  life,  so  there  may  be  a  vast  su- 
praconscious  sphere  of  astral  life,  the  manifestations 
of  which  are  only  now  and  then  in  evidence.”1 

Myers  utters  almost  the  same  thought.  Just  as  there 
are  unknown  and  unsensed  forces  at  work  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  spectrum,  “even  thus,”  he  says,  “I  venture 
to  affirm,  beyond  each  end  of  our  conscious  spectrum 
extends  a  range  of  faculty  and  perception,  exceeding 
the  known  range,  but  as  yet  indistinctly  guessed.  The 
artifices  of  the  modern  physicist  have  extended  far  in 
each  direction  the  visible  spectrum  known  to  Newton. 
It  is  for  the  modern  psychologist  to  discover  artifices 
which  may  extend  in  each  direction  the  conscious  spec¬ 
trum  as  known  to  Plato  or  to  Kent.  The  phenomena 
cited  in  this  work  carry  us,  one  may  say,  as  far  onward 
as  fluorescence  carries  us  beyond  the  violet  end.  The 
‘X-rays’  of  the  psychical  spectrum  remain  for  a  later 


’Quoted  in  Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  340. 


126 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


age  to  discover.  Yet  something  of  clearness  will  be 
gained  by  even  this  rudimentary  mental  picture — rep¬ 
resenting  conscious  human  faculty  as  a  linear  spectrum 
whose  red  rays  begin  where  voluntary  muscular  con¬ 
trol  and  organic  sensation  begin,  and  whose  violet  rays 
fade  away  at  the  point  at  which  man’s  highest  strain 
of  thought  or  imagination  merges  into  reverie  or  ec¬ 
stasy.”1 

The  third  is  Sir  W.  Crookes,  who  uses  almost  the 
same  figure,  which  Dr.  Funk,  in  his  introduction  to 
The  Widoiv’s  Mite ,  thus  comments  upon: 

“If  I  understand  correctly  Mr.  Crookes’  table  of  vi¬ 
brations,  the  differences  between  sound,  electricity, 
light,  X-rays  and  radium  are  only  the  differences  in 
the  frequency  of  vibrations  or  waves — those  of  sound 
in  the  coarse  atmosphere,  and  those  of  the  others  in 
ether,  possibly  something  higher ;  that  is,  if  an  ear  were 
sufficiently  sensitive,  it  could  hear  color,  hear  the 
beauty  of  a  picture.  Radium  is  vibration  up  to  the 
sixtieth  degree  or  step.  .  .  . 

“The  human  body  is  coarse,  made  up  of  slow,  slug¬ 
gish  vibrations,  but  were  these  vibrations  as  rapid  as 
those  of  the  X-rays,  our  bodies  would  be  invisible  and 
pass  thru  many  solids ;  and  were  they  as  rapid  as  ra¬ 
dium,  they  would  pass  thru  all  solids,  as  Christ’s  res¬ 
urrected  body  passed  thru  the  walls  of  the  chamber  at 
Jerusalem.  Scientists  will  soon  make  the  miracles  of 
Christ  elementary.  Already  they  are  changing  their 
attitude  toward  what  has  been  regarded  as  supernat¬ 
ural.” 


^yers:  Human  Personality,  pp.  18-19. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


127 


Do  not  misunderstand  these  statements.  They  are 
not  explanations  of  psychic  phenomena;  I  do  not  say 
that  “ghosts”  have  anything  to  do  with  the  spectrum : 
these  are  simply  figures  of  speech,  analogies  to  make 
clear  one  very  important  fact,  that  apparitions,  clair¬ 
voyance  and  all  the  other  very  wonderful  phenomena 
that  I  mentioned  in  the  first  paper,  are  not  necessarily 
sup miatural.  Simply  because  they  are  not  a  part  of 
our  every-day  consciousness  does  not  mean  that  they 
do  not  exist,  any  more  than  X-rays  do  not  exist  be¬ 
cause  we  can’t  see  them :  they  are  supernatural  no  more 
than  the  X-ray  is  supernatural. 

Clairvoyance,  telepathy  may  be  new  powers  of  the 
human  organism — that  is,  new  to  our  past  experience 
— but  just  as  much  a  part  of  our  universe  as  light  or 
sound :  they  are  governed  likewise  by  natural  laws, 
perhaps  by  the  very  same  laws.  Let  us  see. 

The  Hypothesis  of  the  “Subliminal  Self  ” 

No  name  stands  higher  in  the  realm  of  knowledge 
which  we  are  discussing  than  that  of  Frederic  W.  H. 
Myers,  already  several  times  mentioned.  From  the 
very  foundation  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
none  worked  more  enthusiastically ;  none  reasoned 
more  keenly ;  none  gave  of  time  and  effort  more  gen¬ 
erously.  Naturally  idealistic  in  temperament,  it  was 
natural  that  his  sympathies  should  be  early  aroused: 
it  was  also  natural  that  he  should  press  on,  more  di¬ 
rectly  perhaps  than  the  facts  warranted,  to  the  goal 
which  he  very  soon  set  up — the  scientific  proof  of  an 
existence  after  death. 

Yet  not  so  fast  as  entirely  to  vitiate  his  work.  His 


128  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

enthusiasm  was  tempered  with  patience,  and  he  com¬ 
bined  in  the  formation  of  his  own  theories  an  admirably 
catholic  judgment  and  a  keen  sense  of  proportion  and 
ability  of  analysis.  As  a  result,  his  master  work.  Hu¬ 
man  Personality  and  Its  Survival  of  Bodily  Death,  a 
two-volume  summing  up  of  his  life-long  study  of  the 
psychic  problem,  must  be  conceded,  with  all  its  faults, 
an  epoch-making  contribution  to  the  literature  of  psy¬ 
chology.  This  work,  published  shortly  after  his  death 
— for  he  was  cut  off  in  middle  life  “at  the  zenith”  of  his 
power — gave  to  the  world  the  first  complete  working 
out  of  his  hypothesis  of  the  subliminal  self ;  and  its  ap¬ 
plication  to  the  problems  under  consideration.  And, 
“daring  in  its  conception,  it  was  applied  by  him  with 
even  greater  boldness.  It  was  not  enough  to  utilize 
it  as  an  excellent  working  hypothesis  to  explain  .  .  . 
phenomena  which  .  .  .  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  had  made  it  impossible  for  science  longer  to 
ignore.  If,  on  the  one  hand,  it  could  be  plausibly  main¬ 
tained  by  him  that,  for  example,  men  of  genius  owe 
their  fame  to  a  capacity  for  utilizing  powers  which  lie 
too  deep  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness  for  the 
ordinary  man’s  control ;  that  the  appeal  of  the  hypnotist 
is  to  the  subliminal  .  .  .  self,  and  that  it  is  the  sub¬ 
liminal  self  that  sends  and  receives  telepathic  mes¬ 
sages,  he  could,  on  the  other  hand,  see  every  reason 
for  affirming  that  the  indwelling  principle,  unifying  the 
subliminal  and  supraliminal,  persists  after  the  death  and 
decay  of  the  bodily  organism.”1 

And  what  was  this  hypothesis  of  “the  subliminal 
self”? 


‘Bruce :  Riddle  of  Personality,  pp.  45-6. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


129 


The  definition  of  “self”  current  in  psychology  is 
probably  familiar.  Myers  himself  quotes  Reid  for  a 
clear  summing  up  of  the  conservative  idea  of  person¬ 
ality,  the  answer  that  the  average  man  would  give 
to  the  question,  What  is  it  that  “I”  is?  What  do  I 
mean  when  I  say  “myself”? 

“My  personal  identity,  .  .  .  implies  the  continued 
existence  of  that  indivisible  thing  which  I  call  ‘myself.’ 
Whatever  this  ‘self’  may  be,  it  is  something  which 
thinks  and  deliberates  and  resolves  and  acts  and  suf¬ 
fers.  I  am  not  thought,  I  am  not  action,  I  am  not  feel¬ 
ing;  I  am  something  that  thinks  and  acts  and  suffers. 
My  thoughts  and  actions  and  feelings  change  every 
moment ;  they  have  no  continued,  but  a  successive,  ex¬ 
istence  ;  but  that  self,  or  I,  to  which  they  belong,  is 
permanent.  .  .  .  The  identity  of  a  person  is  a  perfect 
identity ;  ...  it  is  impossible  that  a  person  should  be 
in  part  the  same  and  in  part  different,  because  a  per¬ 
son  ...  is  not  divisible  into  parts.”1 

This  is  clear  and  exact,  as  simple  as  any  definition 
of  anything  as  intangible  as  “self”  could  be.  It  had 
done  duty  as  the  accepted  idea  of  the  nature  of  per¬ 
sonality  for  a  century;  in  fact,  since  the  birth  of  the 
science  of  psychology. 

The  trouble  was,  it  was  altogether  too  simple  to  de¬ 
fine  a  thing  which  scientists  were  discovering  was  very 
complex  indeed.  The  old  definition  did  not  cover  the 
facts :  the  old  idea  of  “self”  had  to  be  broadened  very 
materially.  Mr.  Bruce  summarizes  very  clearly  some 
of  the  difficulties  in  which  psychologists  found  them¬ 
selves. 


’Reid:  Essays  on  the  Intellectual  Powers  of  Man,  p.  318. 


130 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“If  this  unity  and  continuity  on  which  Reid  lays 
such  stress  be  the  essential  elements  of  the  ‘self,’  what 
becomes  of  it  in  the  disintegrations  affecting  it  during 
bodily  life?  Where  locate  it  in  insanity,  in  hysteria, 
in  somnambulism,  spontaneous  or  induced,  in  the  trance 
states  of  mediums  apparently  surrendering  their  organ¬ 
ism  to  the  control  of  some  extraneous  self  ?  Still  more 
perplexing  becomes  the  problem,  on  the  basis  of  the 
‘common-sense’  view  of  personality,  when  there  is  in¬ 
volved  complete,  or  seemingly  complete,  disintegrations 
[cases  of  “dual  personality”],  such  as  those  revealed  in 
the  experience  of  Mary  Reynolds  and  Ansel  Bourne.”1 

Some  new  conception  of  “self”  became  imperative. 
Myers  attacked  the  problem  enthusiastically,  yet  seri¬ 
ously,  and  his  new  hypothesis  was  the  result  of  many 
years’  study  and  elaboration.  If  its  completed  form  did 
not  appear  till  1903,  it  was  tentatively  submitted  to 
the  attention  of  the  scientific  world  as  far  back  as  1887. 
In  an  article  on  The  Drift  of  Psychical  Research 2  he 
had  written :  “Considerable  evidence  has  already  been 
laid  before  the  world  to  show  that:  1.  There  exists 
in  each  of  us  a  subliminal  self ;  that  is  to  say,  a  certain 
part  of  our  being,  conscious  and  intelligent,  does  not 
enter  into  our  ordinary  waking  intelligence,  nor  rise 
above  our  habitual  level  of  consciousness,  into  the 
supraliminal  life.  2.  This  subliminal  life  exerts  facul¬ 
ties  above  the  normal — faculties,  that  is  to  say,  which 
apparently  transcend  our  known  level  of  evolution. 
Some  of  these,  as  hyperesthesia ,  or  keener  sensibility, 
and  hypermesia,  or  fuller  memory,  seem  to  be  exten- 


1Bruce:  Riddle  of  Personality,  p.  34. 
Tn  the  National  Review,  v.  24. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


151 

sions  of  faculties  already  known.  Others,  however, 
altogether  exceed  our  [ordinary]  range  of  powers :  as 
telepathy  .  .  .  clairvoyance  .  .  .  retrocognition  ...  or 
precognition.  ...  3.  This  subliminal  knowledge  or 

faculty  .  .  .  may  be  communicated  to  our  conscious¬ 
ness  ...  by  means  of  sensory  or  motor  automatism.” 

In  the  first  chapter  of  his  masterwork  he  outlines 
his  theory  of  the  “subliminal  self”  in  more  elaborate 
form: 

“The  idea  of  a  threshold  ( limen ,  .  .  .)  of  conscious¬ 
ness — of  a  level  above  which  sensation  or  thought  must 
rise  before  it  can  enter  into  our  conscious  life — is  a 
simple  and  familiar  one.  The  word  subliminal — mean¬ 
ing  ‘beneath  the  threshold’ — has  already  been  used  to 
define  those  sensations  which  are  too  feeble  to  be  indi¬ 
vidually  recognized.  I  propose  to  extend  the  meaning 
of  the  term,  so  as  to  make  it  cover  all  that  takes  place 
beneath  the  ordinary  threshold,  ...  of  consciousness 
— not  only  those  faint  stimulations  whose  very  faint¬ 
ness  keeps  them  submerged,  but  .  .  .  sensations, 
thoughts,  emotions,  which  may  be  strong,  definite  and 
independent,  but  which  .  .  .  seldom  merge  into  that 
supraliminal  current  of  consciousness  which  we  habitu¬ 
ally  identify  with  ourselves. 

“Perceiving  .  .  .  that  these  submerged  thoughts  and 
emotions  possess  the  characteristics  which  we  associate 
with  conscious  life,  I  feel  bound  to  speak  of  a  sub¬ 
liminal,  .  .  .  consciousness — a  consciousness  which  we 
shall  see,  for  instance,  uttering  or  writing  sentences 
quite  as  complex  and  coherent  as  the  supraliminal  con¬ 
sciousness  could  make  them.  Perceiving  further  that 
this  conscious  life  beneath  the  threshold  .  .  .  seems  to 
be  no  .  .  .  intermittent  thing ;  .  .  .  but  that  there  also 


13a 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


is  a  continuous  subliminal  chain  [or  chains]  of  mem¬ 
ory  .  .  .  involving  just  that  kind  of  individual  and  per¬ 
sistent  revival  of  old  impressions  and  response  to  new 
ones,  which  we  commonly  call  a  Self — I  find  it  per¬ 
missible  and  convenient  to  speak  ...  of  a  subliminal 
Self. 

“I  do  not,  indeed,  by  using  this  term,  assume  that 
there  are  two  .  .  .  parallel  selves  existing  always  with¬ 
in  each  of  us.  Rather  /  mean  by  the  subliminal  Self 
that  part  of  the  Self  which  is  commonly  subliminal ;1 
...  I  conceive  that  there  may  be — not  only  co-opera¬ 
tions  [between  these  two  parts  of  the  Self]  .  .  .  — but 
also  upheavals  and  alternations  of  personality  of  many 
kinds,  so  that  what  was  once  below  the  surface  may, 
for  a  time,  or  permanently,  rise  above  it.  And  I  con¬ 
ceive,  also,  that  no  Self  of  which  we  can  here  have  cog¬ 
nizance  is,  in  reality,  more  than  a  fragment  of  a  larger 
Self  .  .  ”2 

The  above  should  be  read  carefully,  as  it  is  one  of 
the  most  important  keys  to  the  scientific  explanation 
to  the  whole  range  of  psychic  phenomena.  To  put 
the  hypothesis  even  more  simply,  Myers  believes  that 
we  possess,  not  one  simple  “self,”  but  a  complex  “self,” 
composed,  as  it  were,  of  many  parts.  One  of  these 
parts,  he  says,  comes  up  into  the  consciousness  of 
every-day  life ;  that  part  is  the  “self”  we  know,  the  one 
that  hears,  sees,  talks,  thinks,  loves.  The  other  parts 
of  our  “self”  are  usually  “below  the  threshold”  of  con¬ 
sciousness,  are  “sub-liminal.”  Ordinarily,  we  do  not 


‘These  italics,  and  the  paragraphing  of  the  quotation,  are 
mine. 

2Myers :  Human  Personality,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  14-15. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


133 


know  they  are  there:  but  they,  he  says,  are  the  parts 
that  are  at  work  in  our  dreams ;  they  are  the  ones  that 
are  acted  upon  by  the  hypnotist.  It  is  these  subliminal 
parts  of  our  “self,”  he  goes  on,  that  give  us  premoni¬ 
tions,  that  are  capable  of  practising  clairvoyance  and 
telepathy,  and,  finally,  may  be  that  part  of  the  “self” 
that  persists  after  the  change  we  call  “death.” 

A  very  important  hypothesis  this,  as  you  can  see. 
Clearly  understood  at  the  outset,  it  will  make  very  clear 
and  possible  a  great  deal  of  the  most  wonderful  phe¬ 
nomena  of  which  we  are  going  to  speak. 

Bear  in  mind,  then,  as  we  go  on,  this  new  idea  of 
“self.”  It  is  something  like  an  iceberg:  a  small  part 
of  it  out  in  the  sunlight  of  consciousness,  feeling  the 
breezes — meaning  by  them  the  various  forces  that  re¬ 
cord  themselves  on  our  five  senses.  But  a  large  part 
of  it  below  the  surface  of  the  water,  sub-liminal,  out 
of  sight  and  knowledge  of  this  daylight  of  conscious¬ 
ness. 

But  at  times  a  little  light  does  filter  down  thru  the 
lower  mass,  and  we  say  we  have  dreams ;  and  once  in 
a  while  the  submerged  part  strikes  an  obstruction  un¬ 
seen  by  the  conscious  self,  and  a  tremble  shudders  up 
thru  the  whole,  and  we  say  we  have  a  “premonition” ; 
and  once  in  a  while  some  warm  current  (of  disease, 
perhaps)  will  eat  away  part  of  the  iceberg,  and  it  will 
“turn  turtle,”  and  the  “self”  we  knew  every  day  will 
go  down  out  of  sight,  and  another  “self”  (but,  after 
all,  only  another  part  of  the  same  “self,”  of  the  same 
iceberg)  will  flash  up  out  of  the  unknown  into  the  day¬ 
light  of  consciousness ;  and  to  the  outer  world  it  will 
seem  that  a  new  person  has  taken  possession  of  the 
former  person’s  body. 


134 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


This  phenomena  of  “dual  personality”  is  not  so  rare 
as  one  might  suppose.  By  Myers’  hypothesis,  just  out¬ 
lined,  we  all  have  other  personalities  latent  within  us ; 
we  are  all,  as  it  were,  possible  cases  of  Dr.  Jekyl  and 
Mr.  Hyde,  if  only  the  chance  comes  right  to  bring  out 
one  of  our  “other  selves.” 

Yet,  for  all  that,  the  cases  which  have  been  noted 
are  profoundly  interesting;  several  have  been  studied 
with  great  care,  but  space  forbid  us  to  more  than 
mention  them  here. 

Cases  of  Dual  Personality 

There  was  Mary  Reynolds,  a  Pennsylvania  girl,  who 
woke  one  day  from  a  deep  sleep  as  one  new  born.  Her 
relatives  and  friends  were  strangers  to  her ;  everything 
she  had  ever  known,  even  how  to  talk,  had  vanished, 
and  had  to  be  learned  anew.  Even  her  manner  and 
disposition  had  changed.  After  a  few  weeks  she  woke, 
this  time  her  original  self,  with  no  memory  of  the 
period  when  she  had  been  Mary  Reynolds  No.  2.  So 
she  alternated  between  her  two  personalities — or  rather 
the  two  parts  of  her  own  personality,  so  distinct  as  to 
seem  two  separate  people — for  several  years.  Finally, 
however,  Mary  Reynolds  No.  2  got  the  better  of  Mary 
Reynolds  No.  i,  and  remained  as  the  Mary  Reynolds 
till  her — or  shall  we  say  “their”? — death. 

Then  there  was  Mme.  B.,  carefully  studied  by  Pro¬ 
fessor  Janet,  among  others,  who  had  three  distinct  per¬ 
sonalities,  called,  respectively,  by  him,  Leonie,  Leontine 
and  Leonore.  Unlike  Mary  Reynolds,  these  “selves” 
seldom  alternated  spontaneously,  but  generally  ap¬ 
peared  at  various  stages  of  hypnosis.  Leonie  knew 
nothing  of  the  existence  of  the  other  two  Madame  B.  s; 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


135 


Leontine  knew  what  Leonie  did  and  thought  and  said, 
but  nothing  about  Leonore ;  while  Leonore  knew  all 
about  what  happened  when  both  Leonie  and  Leontine 
had  command. 

Another  French  case,  Felida  X.,  shows  even  more 
concretely  the  absolute  change  of  personality  which  a 
case  of  this  kind  exhibits.  Felida  X.,  when  she  had 
lapsed  back  into  her  first  self,  “knew  nothing  of  the 
dog  that  played  at  her  feet,  or  of  the  acquaintance  of 
yesterday.  She  knew  nothing  of  her  household  ar¬ 
rangements,  her  business  undertakings,  her  social  du¬ 
ties.”  Making  a  virtue  of  necessity,  Felida  accustomed 
herself,  whenever  she  felt  the  premonitory  symptoms 
of  an  attack,  to  zvrite  letters  to  her  other  self,  giving 
full  directions  as  to  the  conduct  of  her  domestic  and 
social  affairs,  and  in  this  way  she  was  enabled  to  bridge 
the  gap  in  memory  to  some  extent. 

The  case  of  Miss  Beauchamp,  who  had  four  distinct 
personalities,  is,  perhaps,  most  interesting  of  all,  but 
too  long  and  complex  to  quote  here.  The  third  one, 
who  called  herself  “Sally,”  had  an  impish  disposition, 
which  caused  Miss  Beauchamp  (meaning  by  that  Miss 
Beauchamp’s  body’s  first  inhabitant)  no  end  of  trou¬ 
ble.  Miss  Beauchamp,  who  was  in  straitened  circum¬ 
stances  financially,  was  by  nature  cautious  and  thrifty. 
“Sally”  frittered  away  her  carefully  hoarded  earnings. 
Miss  Beauchamp  was  deeply  religious  and  guarded  in 
her  actions.  “Sally”  was  irreligious,  coquettish,  and 
addicted  to  smoking  cigarets.  Miss  Beauchamp  wear¬ 
ied  easily.  “Sally”  never  felt  tired,  and  would  fre¬ 
quently  take  her  other  self,  all  unconsciously,  on  long 
walks,  allowing  Miss  Beauchamp  to  awake  from  the 
trance  state  in  some  distant  suburb,  penniless  and  worn 


136 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


out.  For  a  time  Dr.  Prince  (who  had  the  case  under 
observation)  “gave  her  some  relief  by  hypnotizing 
‘Sally’  into  quiescence,  but  before  long  ‘Sally’  be¬ 
came  unmanageable  even  with  the  aid  of  hypnotism. 
She  had  her  good  qualities,  however.  Once,  .according 
to  Dr.  Prince,  when  Miss  Beauchamp  despairingly 
gave  up  the  struggle  and  essayed  suicide  by  gas,  ‘Sal¬ 
ly’  assumed  control,  turned  off  the  gas,  and  opened 
the  window.”1 

The  situation  was  saved  by  the  appearance  on  the 
scene  of  Personality  No.  4,  who  routed  ‘Sally’  and 
Nos.  1  and  2;  and  has  remained  since  then  the  only 
“Miss  Beauchamp.” 

The  Remarkable  Case  of  Ansel  Bourne 

The  case  of  Ansel  Bourne  is  such  a  clear  example 
of  dual  personality  that  I  venture  to  describe  it  at  great¬ 
er  length. 

Mr.  Bourne  had  been  more  or  less  subject  to  semi¬ 
epileptic  seizures,  partly  resulting  from  a  sunstroke 
suffered  when  a  young  man.  The  latter  event  was  also 
indirectly  the  cause  of  a  deep  religious  awakening, 
which  resulted  in  his  becoming  an  itinerant  preacher. 
One  morning  in  1861,  being  at  that  time  61  years  old, 
and  residing  in  the  village  of  Greene,  R.  I.,  he  myste¬ 
riously  disappeared. 

Some  two  weeks  later  a  stranger,  named  A.  J. 
Brown,  appeared  in  Norristown,  Pa.,  and  renting  a 
store  of  a  Mr.  Earle,  set  up  a  little  shop  for  the  sale 
of  confectionery  and  notions.  Mr.  Brown,  appearing 


’Bruce :  Riddle  of  Personality,  pp.  86-9. 


rhe  store  which  Bourne,  as  A.  J.  II.  The  Bourne  home  in  Greene,  R.  I.  III.  Ansel  Bourne— from  a  contemporary 

■irown,  rented  in  Norristown,  Fa.  photograph 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


137 


respectable  and  steady-going,  was  admitted  into  the 
Earle  family,  and  lived  with  them  for  six  weeks.  Dur¬ 
ing  this  period  he  took  an  active  part  in  the  work  of 
the  local  church,  ran  his  store  methodically  and  suc¬ 
cessfully,  and  gained  the  acquaintance  and  respect  of 
his  new  neighbors. 

Suddenly,  early  one  morning,  he  aroused  the  Earles 
with  inquiries  as  to  where  he  was;  denied  that  he 
owned  a  shop  ;  that  he  had  ever  seen  the  Earles,  or  that 
his  name  was  Brown.  He  declared  his  name  was  Ansel 
Bourne,  and  became  so  excited  that  he  was  thought 
to  be  insane,  and  put  under  surveillance.  He  prevailed 
on  the  local  physician,  however,  to  telegraph  his 
nephew,  Andrew  Harris,  in  Providence ;  and  three  days 
later  this  gentleman  appeared,  wound  up  “Mr. 
Brown’s”  store  and  accounts,  and  took  his  thoroly  be¬ 
wildered  uncle  back  home. 

But  how  did  he  happen  to  be  in  Norristown,  Pa.? 
He  could  not  tell  himself,  for  he  remembered  not  a 
scrap  of  the  events  of  the  last  two  months.  Luckily, 
Dr.  Hodgson  heard  of  the  case,  became  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Bourne,  and  succeeded  in  hypnotizing  him. 
Lo,  as  Dr.  Hodgson  half  anticipated,  in  the  hypnotic 
state  Mr.  Bourne  again  became  “Mr.  Brown,”  with  a 
memory  of  all  that  he  had  done  during  that  two  months 
previously  blank.  This  he  related  in  detail  to  Dr. 
Hodgson ;  and  the  facts  given  were  such  that  the  whole 
account  was  afterward  independently  verified.  “He 
said”  [while  in  the  hypnotic  state],  says  Dr.  Hodgson, 
in  his  report  on  the  case,  “that  his  name  was  Albert 
John  Brown;  that  on  January  17,  1887,  he  went  from 
Providence  to  Pawtucket  in  a  horsecar,  thence  by  train 
to  Boston,  and  thence  to  New  York,  where  he  arrived 


138 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


at  9  p.m.,  and  went  to  the  Grand  Union  Hotel,  regis¬ 
tering  as  A.  J.  Brown.  He  left  New  York  on  the 
following  morning  and  went  to  Newark,  N.  J. ;  thence 
to  Philadelphia,  where  he  arrived  in  the  evening,  and 
stayed  for  three  or  four  days  in  a  hotel  near  the 
depot.  .  .  .  He  thought  of  taking  a  store  in  a  small 
town,  and  after  looking  around  at  several  places,  among 
them  Germantown,  chose  Norristown,  .  .  . 

“He  stated  that  he  was  born  in  Newton,  N.  H., 
July  8,  1826  (he  was  born  in  New  York  City, 
July  8,  1826),  had  passed  thru  a  great  deal  of  trouble, 
losses  of  friends  and  property ;  loss  of  his  wife  was 
one  trouble — she  died  in  1881 ;  three  children  living — 
but  everything  was  confused  prior  to  his  finding  him¬ 
self  in  the  horsecar  on  the  way  to  Pawtucket ;  he  want¬ 
ed  to  get  away  somewhere — he  didn’t  know  where — 
and  have  rest.  He  had  six  or  seven  hundred  dollars 
with  him  when  he  went  into  the  store.  He  lived  very 
closely,  boarded  by  himself,  and  did  his  own  cooking. 
He  went  to  church,  and  also  to  one  prayer-meeting. 
At  one  of  these  meetings  he  spoke  about  a  boy  who 
had  kneeled  down  and  prayed  in  the  midst  of  the  pas¬ 
sengers  on  a  steamboat  from  Albany  to  New  York 
[an  incident  of  which  he  was  well  aware  in  the  Ansel 
Bourne  personality]. 

“He  had  heard  of  the  singular  experience  of  Ansel 
Bourne,  but  did  not  know  whether  he  had  ever  met 
Ansel  Bourne  or  not.  .  .  .  He  used  to  keep  a  store 
in  Newton,  N.  H.,  and  was  engaged  in  lumber  and 
trading  business  [Ansel  Bourne  had  at  one  time  been 
a  carpenter]  ;  had  never  previously  dealt  in  the  business 
which  he  took  up  at  Norristown.  He  kept  the  Norris¬ 
town  store  for  six  or  eight  weeks ;  how  he  got  away 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


139 


from  there  was  all  confused ;  since  then  it  had  been 
a  blank.  The  last  thing  he  remembered  about  the  store 
was  going  to  bed  on  Sunday  night,  March  13,  1887. 
.  .  .  He  did  not  feel  ‘anything  out  of  the  way.’  Went 
to  bed  at  eight  or  nine  o’clock,  and  remembered  lying 
in  bed,  but  nothing  further.”1 

But  what,  you  ask,  have  these  phenomena  of  dual 
personality,  interesting  though  they  are  of  themselves, 
to  do  with  our  main  problem  of  the  future  life?  The 
relation  of  the  two  will  be  clear  enough  if  we  carry 
this  alternation  of  personality  a  single  step  further. 

So  far — unless  we  except  the  irrepressible  “Sally,” 
who  claimed  that  she  was  an  entirely  distinct  person¬ 
ality — we  have  witnessed,  according  to  Myers’  hypothe¬ 
sis,  various  parts  of  a  person’s  self  successively  in  con¬ 
trol  of  his  body.  Now  we  come  to  a  group  of  cases, 
where  the  original  personality  has  been  displaced  by 
what  claims  to  be  an  outside  personality  altogether ;  in 
other  words,  the  body  is  “possessed”  by  another 
“spirit,”  and  this  spirit  claims  to  be  discarnate;  that  is, 
belonging  to  a  person  that  is  dead. 

The  Famous  Case  of  the  “Watseka  Wonder” 

A  complete  discussion  of  this  phenomena  of  “con¬ 
trol”  by  an  exterior  personality  ( motor  automatism 
is  the  name  given  it  by  Myers)  may  better  be  reserved 
a  little  till  we  take  up  the  question  of  mediumship.  I 
shall,  however,  give  the  history  of  one  very  striking 
case  here,  to  show  the  intimate  relation  between  it  and 
dual  personality. 


'S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  Vol.  VII.,  pp.  221-58. 


140 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


The  case  of  Raney  Vennum,  the  “Watseka  Wonder,” 
so  called,  is  attested  to — so  far  as  the  facts  can  be  at¬ 
tested — very  strongly,  the  evidence  having  been  exam¬ 
ined  with  “great  pains”  by  Col.  J.  C.  Bundy,  who  is  en¬ 
dorsed  by  Myers  as  “a  skilful  and  scrupulously  honest 
investigator,”  by  his  associate,  Dr.  Stevens,  by  Dr. 
Hodgson,  and  by  Myers  himself.  For  the  story  of 
“the  Wonder”  I  can  do  no  better  than  quote  the  ex¬ 
cellent  condensation  given  by  Dr.  Funk.1 

“Raney  Vennum  was  a  girl  about  fourteen  years  of 
age,  living,  in  1878,  at  Watseka,  Ind.  In  the  same 
town  had  died,  in  1865,  thirteen  years  before,  a  girl  by 
the  name  of  Mary  Roff.  Mary  died  about  a  year  after 
Raney’s  birth.  Of  course,  the  girls  never  knew  each 
other.  Raney’s  parents  were  not  Spiritualists,  and, 
up  to  this  time,  Raney  had  always  been  in  good  health. 
Her  trouble  began  with  trances,  in  which  she  said  she 
visited  heaven  and  angels.  She  heard  voices  at  night 
calling  her. 

“Her  experiences  at  this  time  seemed  to  be  those 
of  an  insane  person.  She  became  sullen  and  disagree¬ 
able,  and  her  friends  thought  of  sending  her  to  an 
asylum.  One  day  Raney  said  that  a  spirit  by  the  name 
of  Mary  Roff  wanted  to  come  to  her,  and  the  next 
day  Mr.  Vennum  called  at  the  office  of  Mr.  Roff  and 
informed  him  that  his  daughter  claimed  to  be  Mary 
Roff,  and  wanted  to  go  home.  He  said:  ‘She  seems 
like  a  child  real  homesick,  wanting  to  see  her  pa  and 
ma  and  her  brothers.’ 


'Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  pp.  408-12. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


141 


“After  the  supposed  control  of  Mary  Roff,  Raney 
became  ‘mild,  docile,  polite,  and  timid,  knowing  none 
of  the  family,  but  constantly  pleading  to  go  home,’ 
and  ‘only  found  contentment  in  going  back  to  heaven, 
as  she  said,  for  short  visits.’ 

“About  a  week  after  Mary  took  control  of  Raney’s 
body,  Mrs.  A.  B.  Roff  and  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Min¬ 
erva  Alter,  Mary’s  sister,  hearing  of  the  remarkable 
change,  went  to  see  the  girl.  As  they  came  in  sight, 
far  down  the  street,  Mary  Raney,  looking  out  of  the 
window,  exclaimed  exultingly,  ‘There  come  my  ma  and 
sister  Nervie !’ — the  name  by  which  Mary  used  to  call 
Mrs.  Alter  in  girlhood.  As  they  came  into  the  house 
she  caught  them  around  their  necks,  wept  and  cried 
for  joy,  and  seemed  more  homesick  than  before.  At 
times  she  seemed  almost  frantic  to  go  home  [to  the 
Roff  home]. 

“On  the  nth  day  of  February,  1878,  they  sent  the 
girl  to  Mr.  Roff’s,  where  she  met  her  ‘pa  and  ma’  and 
each  member  of  the  family,  with  the  most  gratifying 
expressions  of  love  and  affection,  by  words  and  em¬ 
braces.  On  being  asked  how  long  she  would  stay, 
she  said,  ‘The  angels  will  let  me  stay  till  some  time 
in  May’;  and  she  made  it  her  home  there  till  May  21, 
three  months  and  ten  days,  a  happy,  contented  daugh¬ 
ter  and  sister  in  a  borrowed  body. 

“The  girl,  now  in  her  new  home,  seemed  perfectly 
happy  and  content,  knowing  every  person  and  every¬ 
thing  that  Mary  knew  when  in  her  original  body,  twelve 
to  twenty-five  years  ago,  recognizing  and  calling  by 
name  those  who  were  friends  and  neighbors  of  the 
family  from  1852  to  1865,  when  Mary  died,  calling 
attention  to  scores,  yes,  hundreds,  of  incidents  that 


142 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


transpired  during  her  natural  life.  During  all  the 
period  of  her  sojourn  at  Mr.  Roff’s  she  had  no  knowl¬ 
edge  of,  and  did  not  recognize  any  of,  Mr.  Vennum’s 
family,  their  friends  or  neighbors,  yet  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Vennum  and  their  children  visited  her  and  Mr.  Roff’s 
people,  she  being  introduced  to  them  as  to  any  stran¬ 
gers.  After  frequent  visits,  and  hearing  them  often 
and  favorably  spoken  of,  she  learned  to  love  them  as 
acquaintances,  and  visited  them  with  Mrs.  Roff  three 
times. 

“One  day  she  met  an  old  friend  and  neighbor  of  Mr. 
Roff’s,  who  was  a  widow  when  Mary  was  a  girl  at 
home.  Some  years  since  the  lady  married  a  Mr.  Wag¬ 
oner,  with  whom  she  yet  lives.  But  when  she  met  Mrs. 
Wagoner  she  clasped  her  around  the  neck  and  said: 
‘O  Mary  Lord,  you  look  so  very  natural,  and  have 
changed  the  least  of  any  one  I  have  seen  since  I  came 
back.’  Mrs.  Lord  was  in  some  way  related  to  the 
Vennum  family,  and  lived  close  by  them,  but  Mary 
could  call  her  only  by  the  name  by  which  she  knew  her 
fifteen  years  ago,  and  could  not  seem  to  realize  that 
she  was  married.  Mrs.  Lord  lived  just  across  the 
street  from  Mr.  Roff’s  for  several  years,  prior  and  up 
to  within  a  few  months  of  Mary’s  death ;  both  being 
members  of  the  same  Methodist  church,  they  were  very 
intimate.  .  .  . 

“One  evening,  in  the  latter  part  of  March,  Mr.  Roff 
was  sitting  in  the  room  waiting  for  tea,  and  reading 
the  paper,  Mary  being  out  in  the  yard.  He  asked  Mrs. 
Roff  if  she  could  find  a  certain  velvet  headdress  that 
Mary  used  to  wear  the  last  year  before  she  died.  If 
so,  to  lay  it  on  the  stand  and  say  nothing  about  it,  to 
see  if  Mary  would  recognize  it.  Mrs,  Roff  readily 


The  “Watseka  Wonder,”  the  Most  Famous  Recorded 
Case  of  Obsession 

I.  The  Roff  home  in  1S77,  where  most  of  the  recorded  events  occurred. 

II.  Raney  \  ennum,  who.  as  a  TIT.  Mary  Roff,  whose  spirit  ap- 
girl  of  fourteen,  developed  re-  parentlv  returned  to  inhabit  the 
markable  mediumistic  powers.  body  of  Lurancy  Vennum. 

IV'.  The  Vennum  house  in  Watseka,  Illinois. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


143 


found  and  laid  it  on  the  stand.  The  girl  soon  came 
in,  and  immediately  exclaimed  as  she  approached  the 
stand,  ‘Oh  !  there  is  my  headdress  I  wore  when  my  hair 
was  short!’  She  then  asked,  ‘Ma,  where  is  my  box  of 
letters?  Have  you  got  them  yet?’  Mrs.  Roff  replied, 
‘Yes,  Mary,  I  have  some  of  them.’  She  at  once  got 
the  box,  with  many  letters  in  it.  As  Mary  began  to 
examine  them  she  said :  ‘Oh,  ma,  here  is  a  collar  I 
tatted !  Ma,  why  did  you  not  show  to  me  my  letters 
and  things  before?’  The  collar  had  been  preserved 
among  the  relics  of  the  lamented  child  as  one  of  the 
beautiful  things  her  fingers  had  wrought  before  Lu- 
rancy  was  born ;  and  so  Mary  continually  recognized 
every  little  thing  and  remembered  every  little  incident 
of  her  girlhood.  .  .  . 

“Scores  of  tests  were  made  like  those  just  mentioned, 
which  seemed  to  establish,  as  nearly  as  anything  could 
establish,  the  identity  of  this  spirit  control.  After  three 
months  and  ten  days’  sojourn  in  Raney’s  body,  Mary 
told  her  supposed  parents  that  Raney  was  coming  back, 
and  that  she  must  return  to  the  angels.  When  Raney 
returned  she  had  to  be  introduced  anew  to  all  of  the 
new  acquaintances  that  Mary  had  made,  even  to  Mary’s 
doctor  and  to  the  members  of  the  Roff  family.  Her 
health  was  restored.  She  grew  to  womanhood,  and 
afterward  married.  .  ,  . 

“In  this  strange  Watseka  case  it  will  be  observed 
that  the  person  that  claimed  to  be  Mary  Roff  never 
appeared  to  any  one  at  Watseka  except  thru  the 
body  of  Raney.  She  never  materialized  in  an  inde¬ 
pendent  body;  at  any  rate,  no  one  reposted  to  have 
seen  such  a  materialization.  If  this  was  a  spirit,  as 
Mr.  Hodgson  thinks,  then  it  was  a  case ‘of  obsession.” 


144 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Here  we  have  a  straightforward  and  seemingly  con¬ 
vincing  narrative.  Unfortunately  for  unbiased  cre¬ 
dence,  further  embellishments  are  given,  especially  by 
enthusiastic  spiritualist  writers,  which  weaken  rather 
than  strengthen  the  report. 

Tho  the  most  important,  the  alleged  “Mary  Roff” 
possession  was  not  the  only  one.  At  an  earlier  date 
she  claimed  to  be  “Katrina  Hogan,”  sixty-three  years 
old,  and  recently  arrived  from  Germany  “thru  the  air.” 
At  this  time  “the  girl  sat  near  the  stove,  in  a  common 
chair,  her  elbows  on  her  knees,  her  hands  under  her 
chin,  feet  curled  up  on  the  chair,  eyes  staring,  looking 
in  every  way  like  an  ‘old  hag.’  .  .  .  She  appeared  sullen 
and  crabbed,  calling  her  father  ‘Old  Black  Dick,’  and 
her  mother  ‘Old  Granny.’  ”  At  another  time  she 
claimed  to  be  a  young  man,  “Willie  Canning,”  son  of 
“Peter  Canning,”  who  had  “ran  away  from  home,  got 
into  difficulty,  changed  his  name  several  times,  and 
finally  lost  his  life.”1 

These  appear  suspiciously  like  the  amazingly  coher¬ 
ent  and  detailed  cases  of  dual  personality  of  which  we 
have  already  noted  examples.  As  showing,  however, 
the  attitude  of  the  spiritualist,  we  are  told,  for  example, 
that  at  the  birth  of  her  first  child  (about  four  years 
after  she  married  George  Binning,  a  respectable  farmer 
living  near  Watseka)  “she  was  entranced,  her  eyes 
turned  heavenward,  beautiful  smiles  played  over  her 
features  as  the  work  of  deliverance  went  painlessly  on, 


’From  a  sketch  of  the  life  of  Lurancy  Vennum,  by  E.  W. 
Stevens,  published  in  The  Carrier  Dove,  a  spiritualist  paper  of 
San  Francisco,  in  1887. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


145 


and  not  until  the  new  soul  voiced  its  presence  did  she 
show  any  sign  of  consciousness  of  what  occurred.”1 

Mary  Roff  herself,  it  may  be  noted,  suffered  from 
acute  hysteria,  was  under  almost  constant  medical  care, 
and  by  the  neighbors  generally  was  considered  actually 
insane.  She  was  often  thrown  spontaneously  into  a 
deep  trance,  sometimes  suffering  acute  pain. 

In  the  summer  of  1864  she  seemed  to  have  almost 
a  mania  for  bleeding  herself  for  relief,  as  she  said,  “of 
the  lump  of  pain  in  the  head.”  Drs.  Fowler,  Secrest, 
and  Putwood,  were  called,  and  applied  leeches.  She 
would  apply  them  herself  to  her  temples,  and  liked 
them,  treating  them  like  little  pets,  until  she  seemed 
sound  and  well. 

On  Saturday  morning,  July  16,  1864,  in  one  of  her 
desponding  moods,  she  secretly  took  a  knife  with  her 
to  the  back  yard,  and  cut  her  arm  terribly,  until,  bleed¬ 
ing  excessively,  she  fainted.  This  occurred  about  9 
a.m.  She  remained  unconscious  until  2  p.m.,  when 
she  became  a  raving  maniac  of  the  most  violent  kind, 
in  which  condition  she  remained  five  days  and  nights, 
requiring  almost  constantly  the  services  of  five  of  the 
most  able-bodied  men  to  hold  her  on  the  bed,  altho 
her  weight  was  only  one  hundred  pounds,  and  she 
had  lost  nearly  all  her  blood.  When  she  ceased  raving 
she  looked  and  acted  quite  natural  and  well,  and  could 
do  everything  she  desired  as  readily  and  properly  as 
at  any  time  in  her  life.  Yet  she  seemed  to  know  no 
one,  and  could  not  recognize  the  presence  of  persons 
at  all,  altho  the  house  was  nearly  filled  with  people 
night  and  day.  She  had  no  sense  whatever  of  sight, 


'From  an  appendix  to  the  above  sketch  by  Dr.  Cora  Ellison. 


146 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


feeling,  or  hearing,  in  a  natural  way,  as  was  proved  by 
every  test  that  could  be  applied.  She  could  read  blind¬ 
folded,  and  do  everything  as  readily  as  when  in  health 
by  her  natural  sight.  She  would  dress,  stand  before 
the  glass,  open  and  search  drawers,  pick  up  loose  pins, 
do  anything  and  all  things  readily,  and  without  annoy¬ 
ance,  under  heavy  blindfoldings.1 

This  remarkable  phenomenon  of  clairvoyance  is  at¬ 
tested  to  by  numerous  witnesses,  including  the  physi¬ 
cians  attending,  the  editor  of  the  Iroquois  County  Re¬ 
publican ,  and  later  of  the  Danville  Times,  and  the  local 
clergymen.  She  repeatedly  read  lengthy  extracts  from 
closed  books  and  the  writing  within  sealed  letters. 


aFrom  a  biography  of  A.  B.  Roff,  by  Dr.  Cora  Ellison,  in 
The  Carrier  Dove,  a  well-known  spiritualist  magazine. 


Frederic  W.  H.  Myers 


A  keen  and  earnest  investigator  of  psychical  phenomena,  an  eminent 
psychologist,  and  formulator  of  the  hypothesis  of  the  “subliminal  self.’’ 


'OUR  RECORDS  PROVE  THE  PERSISTENCE  OF  THE 
SPIRIT  LIFE.” 


I  will  briefly  state  facts  which  our  records  [the  records  of 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research]  have,  to  my  mind,  actually 
proved. 

In  the  first  place,  they  prove  survival,  pure  and  simple; 
the  persistence  of  the  spirit’s  life  as  a  structural  law  of  the 
universe;  the  inalienable  heritage  of  each  several  soul.  In  the 
second  place,  they  prove  that  between  the  spiritual  and  the 
material  worlds  an  avenue  of  communication  does,  in  fact, 
exist — that  which  we  call  the  despatch  and  the  receipt  of  tele¬ 
pathic  messages,  or  the  utterance  and  the  answer  of  prayer. 
In  the  third  place,  they  prove  that  the  surviving  spirit  retains, 
at  least  in  some  measure,  the  memories  and  the  loves  of  earth. 
Without  this  persistence  of  love  and  memory,  should  we,  in 
truth,  be  the  same?  To  what  extent  has  any  philosophy  or 

any  revelation  assured  us  of  this  until  now? 

v 

********* 

For  theses  like  the  following,  considerable  evidence  has  al¬ 
ready  been  laid  before  the  world: 

There  exists  in  each  of  us  a  subliminal  self;  that  is  to  say, 
a  certain  part  of  our  being,  conscious  and  intelligent,  does  not 
enter  into  our  ordinary  waking  intelligence. 

This  subliminal  self  exerts  faculties  above  the  normal; 
faculties,  that  is  to  say,  which  apparently  transcend  our  known 
level  of  evolution.  Some  of  these,  as  hyperesthesia  (keener 
sensibility)  and  hypermesia  (fuller  memory),  seem  to  be 
extensions  of  faculties  already  known.  Others,  however,  alto¬ 
gether  exceed  our  ordinary  range  of  powers,  as  telepathy,  or 
direct  knowledge  of  other  minds;  clairvoyance,  or  direct  knowl¬ 
edge  of  distant  facts;  retrocognition,  or  direct  knowledge  of 
past  facts;  and  precognition,  or  knowledge  of  facts  in  the 
future. 

In  this  .  .  .  environment  where  telepathy  operates,  many 
147 


148 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


intelligences  may  affect  our  own.  Some  of  these  are  the 
minds  of  living  persons;  but  some  appear  to  be  discarnate, 
that  is,  spirits  like  ourselves,  but  released  from  the  body,  al¬ 
though  still  retaining  much  of  the  personality  of  earth.  These 
spirits  appear  still  to  have  some  knowledge  of  our  world,  and 
to  be  in  certain  ways  able  to  affect  it.  The  messages  that 
reach  us  from  this  other  world,  although  mixed  with  much 
triviality  and  confusion,  are  on  the  whole  concordant. 

The  discarnate  spirit  seeking  to  talk  to  earth  sees  a  “light” — 
a  glimmer  of  translucency  in  the  confused  darkness  of  our 
material  world.  This  “light”  indicates  a  sensitive — a  human 
organism  so  constituted  that  a  spirit  can  temporarily  inform 
or  control  it,  not  necessarily  interrupting  the  stream  of  the 
sensitive’s  ordinary  consciousness;  perhaps  using  a  hand  only, 
or,  perhaps,  as  in  Mrs.  Piper’s  case,  using  voice  as  well  as 
hand,  and  occupying  all  the  sensitive’s  channels  of  self-mani¬ 
festation. 

Even  in  such  fashion,  through  Mrs.  Piper’s  trances  the 
thronging  multitude  of  the  departed  press  to  the  glimpse  of 
light.  Eager,  but  untrained,  they  interject  their  uncompre¬ 
hended  cries;  vainly  they  call  the  names  that  no  man  answers; 
like  birds  that  have  beaten  against  a  lighthouse,  they  pass 
in  disappointment  away. 

It  is  our  duty  to  search  for  and  train  such  other  favored 
individuals  as  already  show  this  form  of  capacity  for  medium- 
ship,  always  latent,  perhaps,  and  now  gradually  emergent  in 
the  human  race.  The  investigator  must  remember  that  this 
inquiry  must  be  extended  over  many  generations;  nor  must 
he  allow  himself  to  be  persuaded  that  there  are  short  cuts  to 
mastery.  I  will  not  say  that  there  cannot  be  any  such  things 
as  occult  wisdom,  but  every  claim  of  this  kind  examined  has 
proved  deserving  of  complete  distrust.  We  have  no  confidence 
here  more  than  elsewhere  in  any  methods  except  the  open, 
candid,  straightforward  methods  which  the  spirit  of  modern 
science  demands.  —Frederic  W.  H.  Myers. 


CHAPTER  VII 


CLAIRVOYANCE  AND  CLAIR AUDIEN CE 

Before  we  outline  a  few  typical  examples  of  clair¬ 
voyance,  a  word  should  be  said  regarding  the  nature 
of  the  phenomenon  itself,  for  the  medium  is  usually, 
but  not  necessarily,  in  a  light  trance,  and  this  medium- 
istic  trance  state  is  accompanied  by  marked  physiologic 
changes. 

The  first  stage  is  usually  one  of  super-emotional  ac¬ 
tivity.  The  medium  “sighs  deeply  .  .  .  yawns  and  hic¬ 
coughs.”1  Her  facial  expression  may  in  a  few  mo¬ 
ments  run  the  gamut  of  all  the  emotions.  “Some¬ 
times,”  we  are  told  of  Eusapia,  “her  face  flushes ;  the 
eyes  become  brilliant  and  liquid,  and  are  opened  wide. 
The  smile  and  the  motions  are  the  mark  of  the  erotic 
ecstasy.  She  says  ‘mio  caro’  (‘my  dear’),  leans  her 
head  upon  the  shoulder  of  her  neighbor,  and  courts  ca¬ 
resses  when  she  believes  that  he  is  sympathetic.  It  is 
at  this  point  that  phenomena  are  produced,  the  success 
of  which  causes  her  agreeable  and  even  voluptuous 
thrills.  During  this  time  her  legs  and  her  arms  are  in 
a  state  of  marked  tension,  almost  rigid,  or  even  undergo 
convulsive  contractions.  Sometimes  a  tremor  goes  thru 
her  entire  body.”2  With  other  mediums  the  breathing 

'Flammarion :  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  p.  142. 

2  Ibid. 


149 


150 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


becomes  labored,  and,  voluntarily  or  involuntarily, 
much  slower.  There  may  be  a  decided  change  in  the 
heart  action,  the  pulse  often  rising  to  one  hundred  and 
twenty  times  a  minute.  There  may  be  semi-hysteria 
at  this  stage,  sudden  contractions  of  the  muscles  with 
a  resultant  twitching  of  the  limbs,  all  of  which  are 
probably  more  painful  to  the  spectator  than  to  the  sub¬ 
ject. 

To  this  often  succeeds  a  second  intermediate  stage 
of  quiescence  and  pallor.  The  limbs  become  relaxed 
listlessly  or  rigid ;  the  eyes  close ;  the  face  becomes 
deathly  pale  and  the  skin  clammy  and  moist,  “frequent¬ 
ly  covered  with  perspiration.” 

In  the  final  and  usual  stage  of  mediumistic  trance 
there  is  more  natural  action.  The  balls  of  the  eyes 
are  rolled  up  so  that  only  the  whites  are  visible,  but 
the  subject  seldom  appears  to  be  in  pain.  The  medium 
is  now  extremely  sensitive  to  light,  sudden  light  pro¬ 
ducing  the  physiologic  and  emotional  effect  of  acute 
hysteria;  and  Maxwell  believes  that  in  extreme  cases 
light  might  even  prove  fatal.  There  is  hyperesthesia 
(increased  sensibility)  in  all  the  nerve  centers,  and  the 
whole  body  is  sometimes  in  a  shiver  of  continuous 
twitchings  and  tremblings.  As  to  the  medium’s  own 
feelings  during  this  period,  Flammarion  has  this  to 
say  of  Eusapia :  “She  suddenly  experiences  an  ardent 
desire  to  produce  the  phenomena ;  then  she  has  a  feel¬ 
ing  of  numbness  and  the  goose-flesh  sensation  in  her 
fingers ;  these  sensations  keep  increasing ;  at  the  same 
time  she  feels  in  the  inferior  portion  of  the  vertebral 
column  the  flowing  of  a  current  which  rapidly  extends 
into  her  arms,  as  far  as  her  elbows,  where  it  is  gently 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


151 


arrested.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  phenomenon  takes 
place.”1 

To  this  stage  occasionally  succeeds  a  fourth  of  deep 
torpor,  complete  obliviousness  to  all  sensory  stimuli 
like  sound  or  light,  regular  but  sometimes  almost  sus¬ 
pended  breathing  and  heart  action,  and  relaxation  or 
rigidity  of  the  limbs. 

Progression  from  one  stage  to  another,  and  from 
consciousness  to  the  trance  state  and  vice  versa,  is,  we 
should  remember,  spontaneous  and  apparently  volun¬ 
tary  with  the  medium.  There  is  no  hypnosis ;  tho  the 
coming  of  the  trance  state  seems  to  be  hastened  by  har¬ 
mony  in  the  attendant  circle,  by  low,  pleasant  noises, 
like  soft  singing,  and  by  the  linking  of  the  circle  of 
hands. 

There  is  every  reason  for  thinking  that  the  morbid 
phenomena  accompanying  the  trance  transition  are  un¬ 
natural,  and  due  to  our,  as  yet,  imperfect  understand¬ 
ing  of  essential  conditions.  Mrs.  Piper’s  mediumship 
has  so  far  improved  of  recent  years  that  the  transition 
is  now  accompanied  with  no  more  physical  disturbance 
than  a  simple  falling  to  sleep.  Whereas  in  her  early 
experiences  she  looked  forward  with  more  or  less  dread 
to  the  purely  physical  ordeal,  there  is  now  a  calmness 
and  utter  lack  of  annoyance  in  the  various  stages  of 
the  trance  state: 

With  most  manifestations  there  is,  nevertheless,  an 
unquestionably  severe  vital  strain' on  the  physical  forces 
of  the  medium.  Those  who  have  seen  Home  immedi¬ 
ately  after  some' remarkable  exhibition  of  psychic  pow¬ 
er,  pale  as  death,  his  face  covered  with  perspiration, 


'Flammarion :  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces,  p.  142. 


152 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


and  so  weak  as  to  be  almost  or  quite  in  a  fainting 
condition — few  of  those  who  have  seen  him  thus,  re¬ 
marks  Sir  William  Crookes,  could  doubt  the  genuine¬ 
ness  of  the  phenomena  he  exhibited. 


Clairvoyance 

Before  attempting  any  explanation  of  clairvoyance 
or  clairaudience,  let  us  gain  as  clear  an  idea  as  possible 
of  what  they  are,  by  giving  some  typical  examples. 

Mr.  Podmore  quotes  a  simple  case  of  alleged  clair¬ 
voyance  as  told  in  a  letter  from  Professor  Gregory,  of 
the  University  of  Edinburgh,  in  which  the  latter  tells  of 
a  lady,  unknown  to  him  personally,  but  hypnotized 
by  a  friend  of  his.  By  seemingly  clairvoyant  power, 
while  in  the  trance,  she  described  Professor  Gregory’s 
house  in  Edinburgh  most  accurately. 

“I  now  asked  her  to  go  to  Greenock,”  continues  Pro¬ 
fessor  Gregory,  “forty  or  fifty  miles  from  where  we 
were  ...  to  visit  my  son,  who  resides  there  with  a 
friend.  She  soon  found  him,  and  described  him  accu¬ 
rately,  being  much  interested  in  the  boy,  whom  she 
had  never  seen  or  heard  of.  She  saw  him,  she  said, 
playing  in  a  field  outside  a  small  garden  in  which  stood 
a  cottage,  at  some  distance  from  the  town,  on  a  rising 
ground.  He  was  playing  with  a  dog.  I  knew  there 
was  a  dog,  but  had  no  idea  of  what  kind,  so  I  asked 
her.  She  said  it  was  a  large  but  young  Newfoundland, 
black,  with  one  or  two  white  spots.  It  was  very  fond 
of  the  boy,  and  played  with  him.  ‘Oh !’  she  cried  sud¬ 
denly,  ‘it  has  jumped  up  and  knocked  off  his  cap.’  She 
saw  in  the  garden  a  gentleman  reading  a  book  and 
looking  on.  Pie  was  not  old,  but  had  white  hair,  while 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


153 


his  eyebrows  and  whiskers  were  black.  .  .  .  Being 
asked  to  enter  the  cottage,  she  did  so,  and  described  the 
sitting-room.  In  the  kitchen  she  saw  a  young  maid¬ 
servant  preparing  dinner,  for  which  a  leg  of  mutton 
was  roasting  at  the  fire,  but  not  quite  ready.  She  also 
saw  another  elderly  female.  On  looking  again  for  the 
boy,  she  saw  him  playing  with  the  dog  in  front  of  the 
door,  while  the  gentleman  stood  in  the  porch  and 
looked  on.  Then  she  saw  the  boy  run  upstairs  to  the 
kitchen,  which,  she  observed  with  surprise,  was  on  the 
upper  floor  of  the  cottage  (which  it  is)  and  receive 
something  to  eat  from  the  servant — she  thought  a 
potato. 

“I  immediately  wrote  all  these  details  down  and  sent 
them  to  the  gentleman,  whose  answer  assured  me  that 
all,  down  to  the  minutest,  were  exact,  save  that  the  boy 
did  not  get  a  potato,  but  a  small  biscuit,  from  the  cook. 
The  dog  was  what  she  described ;  it  did  knock  off  the 
boy’s  cap  at  the  time  and  in  the  place  mentioned;  he 
was  himself  in  the  garden  with  a  book,  looking  on; 
there  was  a  leg  of  mutton  roasting  and  not  quite  ready ; 
there  was  an  elderly  female  in  the  kitchen  at  that  time, 
altho  not  of  the  household.  Every  one  of  which  facts 
was  entirely  unknown  to  me,  and  could  not,  therefore, 
have  been  perceived  by  thought-reading,  altho,  had 
they  been  so,  as  I  have  already  stated,  this  would  not 
have  been  less  wonderful,  but  only  a  different  phenome¬ 
non.” 

In  the  next  two  instances  you  will  note  that  in  each 
case  the  phenomena  are  ascribed  to  “spirits.”  But  for 
the  present  we  will  ignore  the  cause  of  the  phenomena, 


154 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


our  purpose  now  being  simply  to  establish  the  existence 
of  clairvoyance  in  carefully  recorded  cases. 

Sir  William  Crookes  tells  of  a  lady  who  was  “writing 
automatically  by  means  of  the  planchet.  I  was  try¬ 
ing  to  devise,”  he  says,  “a  means  of  proving  that  what 
she  wrote  was  not  due  to  ‘unconscious  cerebration.’ 
The  planchet,  as  it  always  does,  insisted  that,  altho 
it  was  moved  by  the  hand  and  arm  of  the  lady,  the 
intelligence  was  that  of  an  invisible  being  who  was 
playing  on  her  brain  as  on  a  musical  instrument  and 
thus  moving  her  muscles.  I  therefore  said  to  this  in¬ 
telligence  :  ‘Can  you  see  the  contents  of  this  room  ?’ 
‘Yes,’  wrote  the  planchet.  ‘Can  you  see  to  read  this 
newspaper?’  said  I,  putting  my  finger  on  a  copy  of 
the  Times,  which  was  on  a  table  behind  me,  but  with¬ 
out  looking  at  it.  ‘Yes,’  was  the  reply  of  the  planchet. 
‘Well,’  I  said,  ‘if  you  can  see  that,  write  the  word  which 
is  now  covered  by  my  finger,  and  I  will  believe  you.’ 
The  planchet  commenced  to  move.  Slowly,  and  with 
great  difficulty,  the  word  ‘however’  was  written.  I 
turned  around  and  saw  that  the  word  ‘however’  was 
covered  by  the  tip  of  my  finger. 

“I  had  purposely  avoided  looking  at  the  newspaper 
when  I  tried  this  experiment,  and  it  was  impossible 
for  the  lady,  had  she  tried,  to  have  seen  any  of  the 
printed  words,  for  she  was  sitting  at  one  table  and  the 
paper  was  on  another  table  behind,  my  body  interven¬ 
ing.”1 

You  will  note  that  in  this,  as  in  the  previous  in¬ 
stance,  neither  party  knew  beforehand  the  information 
to  be  given. 


'Crookes:  Notes.  Quar.  Jour,  of  Set.,  Jan.,  1874,  pp.  91-2. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


155 


Dr.  Funk  quotes  the  following  example  of  clairvoy¬ 
ance  related  by  Dr.  Savage  from  his  own  experience : 
Dr.  Savage  “said  to  a  spirit  that  was  writing  through 
the  hand  of  a  young  man : 

“  ‘If  you  are  really  a  person,  and  are  really  here,  you 
ought  to  be  able  to  go  somewhere  in  the  city  for  me, 
and  find  out  something  at  my  request,  return,  and  tell 
me  about  it.’ 

“The  spirit  said  he  had  never  done  anything  of  the 
kind,  but  would  try.  Dr.  Savage  sent  him  to  his  house 
to  find  out  what  Mrs.  Savage  was  doing.  Mrs.  Sav¬ 
age  had  told  the  doctor  before  he  left  home  that  morn¬ 
ing  that  she  would  be  away  all  forenoon.  In  four  or 
five  minutes  the  spirit  returned  and  said :  ‘Mrs.  Savage 
was  at  home,  and  when  I  was  there  she  was  standing 
in  the  front  hall,  saying  good-by  to  a  caller.’  The  doc¬ 
tor  believed  that  she  was  anywhere  but  home.  Yet  it 
turned  out  that  a  caller  had  come,  and  Mrs.  S.  did  not 
go  elsewhere,  as  she  had  expected ;  and  on  comparing 
notes,  Dr.  Savage  found  that  at  the  time  that  the  spirit 
said  he  called  she  was  saying  good-by  to  her  guest.”1 

The  following  story  of  alleged  clairvoyance  during 
a  dream  appeared  in  the  Paris  Matin,  a  typical  example 
of  clairvoyance  as  met  with  in  spiritualistic  literature. 
It  is,  of  course,  valueless  as  proof,  however,  lacking  as 
it  does  any  documentary  or  testimonial  corroboration. 

“A  Rev.  Dr.  Perring,  a  minister  near  London,  had 
recently  buried  his  eldest  son.  Two  nights  after  the 
funeral  Mr.  Perring  saw  in  a  dream  his  son  covered 
with  blood,  and  heard  exactly  the  voice  of  his  son  say : 
‘Oh,  father,  do  come  and  stop  them ;  I  cannot  rest  in 


See  Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  254. 


156 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


my  coffin !’  The  poor  father,  very  upset  by  the  dream, 
tried  to  sleep  again,  when  another  vision  came.  He 
heard  again  the  voice  of  his  son  shouting  and  scream¬ 
ing,  and  the  words,  ‘Oh,  father,  they  are  pulling  my 
body  to  pieces !’  As  soon  as  the  daylight  came  the  min¬ 
ister  went  to  the  church,  and  saw  that  the  grave  had 
been  disarranged;  and  after  further  examination,  that 
some  one  had  been  in  in  the  night  and  had  broken  the 
jaws  of  the  corpse  and  had  stolen  the  teeth.  After 
inquiry  the  police  found  the  teeth  at  a  dentist’s  in  the 
locality.” 

Another  example  of  clairvoyance,  somewhat  more 
carefully  attested,  but  still  by  itself  unconvincing,  is 
that  related  of  a  very  remarkable  contemporary  boy 
medium,  John  Flottum,  of  Singsaas,  in  Norway. 

The  exploit  in  question,  typical  of  many  similar  ones 
performed  by  him,  was  the  finding  of  the  body  of  Helge 
Dehli,  a  wealthy  farmer  of  the  Tonset  neighborhood. 
This  was  in  June,  1907,  and  Fldttum  was  at  that  time 
but  thirteen  years  old.  This  case  was  investigated  by 
the  Christiania  Aftenposten,  one  of  the  most  important 
Norwegian  dailies,  and  is  considered  by  them  convinc¬ 
ingly  attested  to. 

Flottum  was  not  sent  for  till  Dehli  had  been  missing 
eight  days,  and  every  usual  method  of  search  had  been 
exhausted  in  vain.  Arrived  at  the  Dehli  farm,  near 
Glommen,  he  looked  at  the  missing  man’s  photograph. 
Then  suddenly  he  “hurried  into  the  house  and  sat  down 
to  draw.  The  drawing  gradually  took  shape  until  it 
represented  a  map  of  the  surrounding  country  (a  sec¬ 
tion  unfamiliar  to  the  boy),  then  he  drew  a  line  along 
the  track  which  the  missing  man  had  taken  after  he 
left  his  home. 


The  Famous  Bertha  Huse  Case  of  Clairvoyance 

Lake  near  Enfield. 

Mrs.  Edwin  Huse,  Mrs.  Titus, 

mother  of  Bertha.  the  medium. 

The  “Shaker  Bridge,”  scene  of  the  tragedy. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


157 


“The  work  was  evidently  a  great  effort  to  him.  He 
supported  his  head  with  one  hand,  while  with  the  other 
he  traced  the  lines,  bit  by  bit,  with  a  long  interval  be¬ 
tween  each  stroke,  while  the  perspiration  ran  down  his 
face.  .  .  .  He  saw  the  man  with  his  ‘inner  vision’;  he 
saw  him  leave  the  house  and  wander  along  the  track 
which  he  had  marked  out.  .  .  .  Now  and  then  the  man 
vanished  from  the  boy’s  vision,  and  then  the  drawing 
came  to  a  standstill.” 

At  such  a  point,  with  Dehli  lying,  to  the  boy’s  clair¬ 
voyant  sight,  under  a  large  tree  near  a  river,  the  bov, 
despite  the  most  exhausting  efforts,  could  go  no  fur¬ 
ther.  Search  was  enthusiastically  begun,  however,  by 
the  whole  parish,  following  the  twisting  trail  marked 
on  the  boy’s  map,  and  next  day  the  tree  which  the  boy 
had  seen  was  found.  Dehli  was  not  there,  but  his  hand¬ 
kerchief  was,  and  at  sight  of  it  the  boy  passed  off  into 
an  even  more  painful  trance. 

Early  the  next  morning  Flottum  ordered  a  boat, 
which  circled  over  the  river  as  he  directed.  “Suddenly 
he  stood  up  and  exclaimed,  ‘This  is  where  he  lies!’ 
And  sure  enough,  the  body  was  found  at  the  very  spot.” 

In  appearance  Flottum  is  described  as  a  lively,  nor¬ 
mal,  thoroly  healthy  boy.  His  clairvoyant  power  was 
not  discovered  till  he  was  twelve  years  old,  but  he  has 
already  given  many  startling  manifestations  of  his  abil¬ 
ity. 

The  Celebrated  Case  of  Bertha  Huse 

With  the  celebrated  case  of  Bertha  Huse.  however, 
we  seem  to  attain  a  new  standard  of  care  in  investi¬ 
gating  the  claims  alleged  and  in  corroborating  the  facts 


158 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


in  question.  Were  the  Flottum  and  Matin  cases  un¬ 
supported  by  corroborative  instances,  we  might  dis¬ 
miss  them  offhand  as  coincidences,  or  even  outright  fic¬ 
tion  ;  but  can  we  do  the  same  with  the  Huse  case  ? 

On  Monday,  October  I,  1898,  a  Miss  Bertha  Huse 
left  her  home  at  Enfield,  N.  H.,  before  the  rest  of  the 
family  had  arisen,  and  mysteriously  disappeared.  She 
was  last  seen  alive  by  neighbors  who  noticed  her  walk¬ 
ing  toward  the  so-called  Shaker  Bridge.  Later  in 
the  day,  alarmed  at  her  inexplicable  absence,  the  fam¬ 
ily  instituted  a  search,  and  during  the  afternoon  sev¬ 
eral  hundred  men  and  boys  scoured  the  woods  and 
near-by  lake  shore.  This  being  fruitless,  a  Mr.  Whit¬ 
ney,  a  local  mill  owner,  sent  to  Boston  for  divers,  and 
one  named  Sullivan  searched  the  lake  all  day  Tuesday, 
and  Wednesday  till  noon,  especially  around  the  Shaker 
Bridge,  on  which  Bertha  had  last  been  seen,  but  no 
trace  of  her  was  found. 

On  this  same  Wednesday  evening  a  Mrs.  Titus,  liv¬ 
ing  in  Lebanon,  a  village  about  five  miles  from  Enfield, 
started  in  her  doze  with  a  horrified  cry  and  unseeing, 
staring  eyes,  that  so  alarmed  her  husband  that  he  woke 
her  up.  When  he  had  shaken  her  into  consciousness 
she  said:  “Why  did  you  disturb  me?  In  a  moment 
I  should  have  found  that  body.” 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  his  wife  again  woke  him 
with  moans,  and  this  time  he  waited  till  she  spoke.  Still 
asleep,  she  said  in  a  monotonous  undertone:  “She 
followed  the  road  down  to  the  bridge,  and  on  getting 
part  way  across  it,  stepped  out  on  that  jutting  beam 
which  was  covered  by  white  frost.  .  .  .  While  so  stand¬ 
ing  she  slipped  on  a  log,  fell  backward,  and  slid  in  un¬ 
derneath  the  timberwork  of  the  bridge.  You  will  find 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


159 


her  lying  head  in,  and  you  will  only  be  able  to  see  one 
of  her  rubbers  projecting  from  the  timberwork.” 

Mr.  Titus  lighted  a  lamp  and  watched  and  talked 
with  her  for  an  hour  in  very  low  tones ;  when  ques¬ 
tioned  on  this  subject  she  would  answer,  but  would  not 
hear  about  other  things.  She  said  something  about 
cold,  and  Mr.  Titus  said,  “Are  you  cold,  Nellie?”  She 
said,  “Oh,  oh!  I  am  awfully  cold.”  (It  was  late  fall; 
the  water  of  the  lake  was  almost  freezing,  and  Mrs. 
Titus  seemed  to  be  speaking  of  the  drowned  girl.) 

Now,  on  Sunday,  the  day  before  the  suicide  of  Ber¬ 
tha  Huse,  Mrs.  Titus  had  said  to  her  husband : 
“George,  something  awful  is  going  to  happen.  I  can¬ 
not  tell  you  what  it  is,  now,  but  can  later  on.”  On 
Monday  morning,  at  6.40,  as  he  was  leaving  for  the 
Mascoma  Flannel  Company’s  mill,  where  he  worked, 
she  said,  shuddering,  that  it  had  “happened.”  It  was 
not  till  that  night  that  the  Tituses  heard  of  the  girl’s 
disappearance. 

On  the  morning  following  his  wife’s  clairvoyant  mes¬ 
sage  (Thursday),  at  her  earnest  solicitation,  Mr.  Titus 
told  it  to  Mr.  Ayer,  his  employer,  and  to  others ;  and 
finally,  the  same  day,  the  two  went  over  to  Enfield  and 
enlisted  the  rather  incredulous  interest  of  Mr.  Whit¬ 
ney.  The  diver  listened  to  them  both,  but  replied  that 
he  had  searched  in  vain  the  previous  day  in  the  spot 
now  indicated  by  Mrs.  Titus  as  she  stood  on  the  bridge. 
She,  however,  was  insistent.  “You  did  not  search 
there,”  she  said,  pointing  more  closely,  and  describing 
exactly  the  position  in  which  the  body  lay.  To  humor 
her  he  put  on  his  suit,  and  five  minutes  later  brought 
the  corpse  to  the  surface.  Unscrewing  his  helmet,  he 
said:  “I  did  not  look  in  that  place  yesterday  as  the 


160  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

brush  and  debris  were  so  thick  there  that  I  could  not 
see;  in  fact,  all  I  could  feel  of  the  body  was  the  rubber 
projecting  from  the  timberwork.” 

This  would  seem  to  be  one  of  the  most  convincing 
cases  of  alleged  clairvoyance  on  record,  being  care¬ 
fully  investigated  at  the  time  by  Dr.  Harris  Kennedy, 
of  Roxbury,  a  cousin-in-law  of  Professor  William 
James,  of  Harvard,  and  by  the  latter  eminent  psycholo¬ 
gist.  The  details  are  attested  to  by  numerous  wit¬ 
nesses,  the  full  account  being  given  in  Volume  I  of 
the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical 
Research. 

Mrs.  Titus  had  had  occasional  trances  (involuntary), 
a  tendency  inherited  from  her  mother,  but  had  at  the 
time  little,  if  any,  reputation  as  a  spiritualist.  She  did 
not  know  Bertha  Huse.  Previous  to  finding  the  body, 
Mr.  Titus  had  imparted  his  wife’s  message  to  a  large 
number  of  reputable  persons  who  now  bear  witness  to 
the  seeming  reality  of  her  powers. 

Several  “natural”  explanations  of  the  case  have  been 
made,  such  as  the  fact  that  traces  of  footprints  were 
seen  on  the  bridge,  the  theory  that  Mrs.  Titus,  con¬ 
trary  to  both  her  own  and  her  husband’s  testimony, 
might  have  been  in  Enfield  at  six  o’clock  that  cold  win¬ 
ter  morning  and  have  seen  the  girl  commit  suicide. 
But  neither  of  these,  improbable  as  they  would  seem 
in  themselves,  explain  how  Mrs.  Titus  could  describe 
the  exact  position  of  the  body.  Sullivan,  the  diver, 
says:  “She  was  lying  in  a  deep  hole,  head  down.  It 
was  so  dark  that  I  could  not  see  anything ;  I  had  to  feel 
entirely.”  At  this  place  the  water  was  eighteen  feet 
deep,  and,  as  he  says,  completely  dark;  besides  that, 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  161 

the  supporting  timbers  of  the  bridge  would  have  hid¬ 
den  the  body  from  the  roadway. 

Subsequently  the  diver  gave  details  of  rescuing  bod¬ 
ies,  and  added:  “It  is  my  business  to  recover  bodies 
in  the  water,  and  I  am  not  afraid  of  them ;  but  in  this 
instance  I  was  afraid  of  the  woman  on  the  bridge. 
.  .  .  How  can  any  woman  come  from  four  miles  away, 
and  tell  me,  or  any  other  man,  where  I  would  find  this 
body?” 

I  have  detailed  these  examples  of  clairvoyance  be¬ 
cause  they  are  typical.  But  do  not  suppose  they  are 
isolated  cases.  Nearly  all  instances  of  clairaudience 
include  clairvoyance;  and  of  simple  clairvoyance  the 
literature  of  spiritualism  abounds  in  examples.  Sir 
William  Crookes  quotes  several,  substantiated  in  the 
most  precise  terms ;  the  note-books  and  published  works 
of  the  Rev.  Stainton  Moses,  the  great  English  medium, 
are  full  of  cases;  Myers  gives  a  score  in  his  Human 
Personality,  especially  the  very  striking,  if  horrible, 
Storie  case;  other  instances  are  noted  by  Dr.  Funk, 
Mr.  Podmore,  Dr.  Hyslop,  and  other  writers  on  the 
subject.  I  shall  quote  some  of  these  later  in  the  discus¬ 
sion  of  the  closely  allied  telepathic  phenomena. 

Clairaudience 

Clairaudience  seems  to  differ  from  clairvoyance  in 
two  respects.  It  seldom  occurs  except  in  combination 
with  clairvoyance,  and  it  generally  consists  of  a  sin¬ 
gle  detached  sound  or  a  short  sentence.  I  have  seen 
no  record,  for  instance,  of  the  receipt,  clairaudiently, 
of  an  extended  discourse. 

We  do  have,  on  the  other  hand,  such  incidents  as 
that  related  by  Commander  T.  Aylesbury,  of  Sutton, 


162 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Surrey,  where  a  drowning  boy  utters  a  cry  that  is  heard 
by  both  his  mother  and  his  sister  in  England,  fourteen 
thousand  miles  away.1  We  have  the  case  quoted  by 
Dr.  Funk,  where  two  sisters  in  Brooklyn  hear  a  brother 
in  Texas,  whom  they  believed  was  dead,  inquiring 
about  a  letter.2  We  have  the  example,  also  noted  in 
The  Widow’s  Mite,  of  the  Jeannette.  “A  few  years  ago 
the  wife  of  one  of  the  officers  on  board  of  the  Jean¬ 
nette?  the  vessel  sent  by  the  New  York  Herald  to  ex¬ 
plore  the  polar  seas,  wrote  to  me  that  one  night  she 
was  suddenly  awakened,  and  was  amazed  to  see  her 
husband  at  her  bedside.  He  said  to  her,  ‘Count, 
count.’  She  says  that  she  heard  distinctly  a  ship’s  bell. 
She  heard  the  word  again,  ‘Count.’  She  counted  six 
strokes,  when  he  said,  ‘Six  bells,  and  the  Jeannette  is 
lost,’  and  the  vision  disappeared.  She  wrote  that  ‘the 
Jeannette  was  lost  at  the  time  I  had  that  vision.’  ” 

Another  case  in  which  the  human  voice  is  carried 
many  hundred  miles  is  noted  in  the  Proceedings  of 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 

“On  September  9,  1848,  at  the  siege  of  Mooltan, 
Major-General  R.,  C.B.,  then  adjutant  of  his  regi¬ 
ment,  was  most  severely  and  dangerously  wounded, 
and,  supposing  himself  dying,  asked  one  of  the  officers 
with  him  to  take  the  ring  off  his  finger  and  send  it  to 
his  wife,  who  at  the  time  was  fully  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  distant,  at  Ferozepore. 

“  ‘On  the  night  of  September  9,  1848,  I  was  lying  on 
my  bed,’  ”  says  his  wife,  who  tells  the  story,  “  ‘between 


’Myers :  Phantoms  of  the  Living,  v.  2,  pp.  227-8. 
’Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  pp.  312-14. 

'Ibid.,  p.  31 1. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  163 

sleeping  and  waking,  when  I  distinctly  saw  my  hus¬ 
band  being  carried  off  the  field,  seriously  wounded, 
and  heard  his  voice  saying,  “Take  this  ring  off  my 
finger  and  send  it  to  my  wife.”  All  the  next  day  I 
could  not  get  the  sight  or  the  voice  out  of  my  mind. 
In  due  time  I  heard  of  General  R.  having  been  severely 
wounded  in  the  assault  on  Mooltan.  He  survived, 
however,  and  is  still  living.  It  was  not  for  some  time 
after  the  siege  that  I  heard  from  Colonel  L.,  the  offi¬ 
cer  who  helped  to  carry  General  R.  off  the  field,  that 
the  request  as  to  the  ring  was  actually  made  to  him, 
just  as  I  had  heard  it  at  Ferozepore  at  that  very 
time.’ 


What  Is  Clairvoyance? 

For  these  cases  of  clairvoyance  and  clairaudience, 
assuming,  if  necessary,  for  the  moment,  that  they  are 
genuine  occurrences,  there  is,  of  course,  the  immediate 
and  easy  explanation  of  “spiritual”  intervention. 

But,  leaving  spirits  for  a  moment  out  of  it,  is  there, 
first,  no  possibility  of  any  other,  any  “natural”  explan¬ 
ation?  For  if  there  is,  we  are  bound  to  advance  it. 

In  the  first  place,  I  venture  to  assert  that  we  dare 
not,  from  our  present  knowledge,  set  any  limits  to  the 
possible  powers  of  our  mere  bodily  organism.  A  man 
would  immediately  sav,  for  example,  “Why  not  ‘set 
limits’?  My  will,  for  example,  can  move  only  my  arm 
and  what  my  arm  can  touch — in  other  words,  only  those 
objects  which  are  actually  in  contact  with  the  ‘proto¬ 
plasmic  skeleton’  which  represents  the  life  of  my  or¬ 
ganism.”  Yet  a  moment’s  thought  will  show  that  this 


’S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  i,  pt.  i,  pp.  30-1. 


164? 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


is  not  strictly  true.  “I  can  sometimes,”  says  Myers, 
“move  objects  not  in  actual  contact,  as  by  melting  them 
with  the  heat,  or  (in  .  .  .  dry  air  .  .  .)  kindling  them 
with  the  electricity  which  my  fingers  emit.  And,”  he 
goes  on,  “I  see  no  very  definite  limit  to  this  power. 
I  do  not  know  all  the  forms  of  energy  which  my  fin¬ 
gers  might,  under  suitable  training  [or  suitable  condi¬ 
tions],  emit.”1  How  prophetic  these  words  of  Myers 
are  is  brought  home  by  the  fact  that,  as  we  saw  in  the 
second  article  on  Eusapia  Paladino,  Lombroso  has  very 
recently  suggested  with  some  basis  that  the  human 
body  is  itself  continually  emitting  hitherto  unknown 
radiations  allied  to  the  mysterious  “N-rays!” 

But  if  we  are,  after  all,  still  ignorant  of  all  the  pos¬ 
sible  powers  of  the  body,  how  much  more  are  we  igno¬ 
rant  of  the  limits  to  be  set  for  the  abilities  of  the  “self” 
which  controls  that  body!  And  especially  does  our 
ignorance  appear  overwhelming  when  we  consider,  as 
we  have  done,  that  this  “self”  of  ours  is  not  a  simple 
unit,  but  includes  a  whole  host  of  “subliminal”  parts, 
of  which  we  have  hardly  as  yet  so  much  as  proved  the 
existence. 

We  already  have,  however,  a  collection  of  phenom¬ 
ena  acting  as  a  guide,  because  they  illustrate  very  un¬ 
usual  abilities  of  this  same  “subliminal  self,”  namely, 
the  phenomena  of  hypnotism.  The  hypnotic  trance,  we 
remember,  simply  means,  according  to*  Myers’  theory, 
that  the  subject’s  body  is  temporarily  under  the  con¬ 
trol  of  some  one  of  the  subliminal  parts  of  his  own 
“self.” 

Each  of  these  selves  which  develop  under  hypnosis 


‘Myers:  Human  Personality,  p.  313. 


Impression  of  Two  Clenched  Hands  in  Clay, 

Made  at  a  distance  without  contact  by  the  medium  Eusapia  Paladino 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


165 


has  its  own  individuality,  its  own  knowledge  and  feel¬ 
ings  and  memories.  At  one  stage  of  hypnosis,  for 
example,  the  subject  may  be  under  the  control  of  a 
part  of  his  subliminal  self,  which  we  will  call  “X.” 
“X”  thinks  that  he  is  Professor  So-and-so,  of  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  So-and-so,  and  he  will  act,  speak,  talk  and 
think  as  that  professor  would.  Wake  the  subject  up, 
and  he  will  have  no  memory  of  his  “professor”  state, 
when  the  “X”  part  of  his  personality  had  control ;  but 
put  him  back  (by  hypnotizing  him  again)  into  the  “X” 
condition,  and  he  will  pick  up  again  the  “professor” 
life  just  where  he  left  off  with  it  a  little  before,  remem¬ 
bering  all  that  he  did  in  his  former  trance,  but  nothing 
of  his  own  life  outside  it. 

But  there  is  something  even  more  interesting.  When 
the  subject  is  in  “X”  state  let  the  hypnotizer  say  to 
him,  “Sixty  minutes  from  now  shut  the  window  behind 
you.”  The  subject  is  then  awakened,  and  remembers 
absolutely  nothing  of  his  “X”  state  or  of  the  command 
given  him  while  in  it.  But  exactly  sixty  minutes  later, 
unconsciously,  and  without  knowing  why  he  does  it, 
the  subject  gets  up  and  closes  the  window  indicated. 
Deep  down  in  his  subliminal  self,  in  that  “X”  part  of 
his  personality  unknown  to  his  consciousness,  that  com¬ 
mand  was  waiting  all  the  time,  and  when  the  moment 
came  it  rushed  up  from  below  the  threshold  and  made 
the  body  for  a  moment  obey  it. 

Now — and  this  is  the  significant  point — a  study  of 
hypnotism  shows  us  that  the  subliminal  self,  when  it 
thus  has  temporary  control  of  the  body,  is  able  to  do 
very  unusual  things.  When  it  pleases,  it  is  able,  for 
instance,  to  do  what  the  conscious  will  can  never  do — - 
change  the  tissue  structure  of  the  body.  That  is,  a  man, 


166 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


in  certain  stages  and  conditions  of  hypnosis,  not  only 
can  imagine,  in  answer  to  the  hypnotizer’s  suggestion, 
that  he  is  burned,  but  can  actually,  by  thinking,  raise  a 
blister  on  the  spot  indicated. 

For  some  years  psychologists  have  been  aware  of  a 
very  remarkable  phenomena,  known  as  stigmatization. 
The  name  came  from  the  fact  that  its  earliest  sponta¬ 
neous  manifestations  were  the  result  of  brooding  over 
“the  stigmata  of  Christ’s  passion — the  marks  of 
wounds  in  hands  and  feet  and  side.”  It  was  soon  found 
that  these  morbid  imaginings  could  actually  produce 
upon  the  subject  the  marks  of  the  wounds.  This  is 
another  case  of  the  subliminal  self’s  control  over  the 
tissues  of  the  body ;  for  stigmatization  is  merely  a  step 
further.  The  subject  has  put  himself  into  a  semi¬ 
hypnotic  state ;  instead  of  being  hypnotized  by  an  ex¬ 
ternal  mind,  he  has  put  himself  under  the  control  of 
his  own  subliminal  self. 

But  this  part  of  the  personality  can  do  more  than 
change  tissue  structure.  By  suggestion,  for  example, 
the  hypnotic  subject’s  eyes  may  be  made  to  run  as  he 
smells  of  simple  water ;  and  conversely,  obeying  a  simi¬ 
lar  suggestion,  the  fumes  of  strong  ammonia  may  cause 
not  a  tear.  Here  we  have  control  of  the  secretions. 
The  subliminal  self  can  make  the  muscles  as  rigid  as 
stone  (catalepsis)  ;  it  can  create  or  dissipate  hunger, 
alcoholism,  and  other  desires  and  appetites,  almost  at 
will ;  it  can,  to  a  certain  extent,  nullify  or  restore  any 
of  the  senses. 

Doing  all  these  things,  it  was  very  early  seen  that 
hypnosis  was  an  efficient  agent  in  the  cure  of  disease. 
Let  the  patient  but  put  himself  partly  under  the  con¬ 
trol  of  his  subliminal  self,  and  results  so  marvelous  as 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


167 


to  seem  almost  “miraculous”  may  be  effected.  Mind- 
cure,  so  called — “suggestive  therapeutics” — is  nothing 
new  to  the  psychologist,  nor  original  to  the  Christian 
Science  denomination,  as  the  latter  would  sometimes 
have  us  believe.  Christian  Science  does  deserve  every 
credit,  however,  for  emphasizing  in  a  large  way  its 
remedial  practicability. 

Doing  these  things  too,  knowing  that  we  are  but  be¬ 
ginning  to  open  up  a  vast  domain  of  unknown  powers 
governed  by  the  subliminal  portion  of  our  conscious¬ 
ness,  powers  infinitely  greater  and  more  wonderful 
than  those  exerted  by  the  conscious  self,  and  in  further 
view  of  the  large  evidence  for  the  occurrence  of  the 
phenomena,  we  would  seem  to  have  a  ground  sufficient 
to  prevent  a  dogmatic  denial  of  the  very  possibility  of 
at  least  occasional  cases  of  genuine  clairvoyance. 

Precognition,  or  Prophecy 

Rarely,  but  occasionally,  in  the  history  of  spiritual¬ 
ism,  occur  cases  of  actual  precognition,  or  prophecy, 
when  the  clairvoyant  sight  of  the  medium,  in  some 
wonderful  way,  seems  actually  to  pierce  the  veil  of  the 
future.  Mere  flashes  of  this  precognitive  knowledge 
we  call  premonitions ;  these  will  be  considered  later. 
But  here  are  two  very  striking  and  carefully  attested 
cases  of  clairvoyant  prophecy.  The  first  is  the  account 
of  a  Mrs.  McAlpine,  quoted  in  the  Report  on  the  Cen¬ 
sus  of  Hallucinations,  and  corroborated  by  a  sister  of 
Mrs.  McAlpine  and  the  local  papers:1 

“I  remember  in  the  June  of  1889,  I  drove  to  Castle- 
blaney,  a  little  town  in  the  County  Monaghan,  to  meet 


‘Reported  in  S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  9,  p.  416. 


168 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


my  sister,  who  was  coming  by  train  from  Longford. 
I  expected  her  at  three  o’clock,  but  as  she  did  not  come 
with  that  train,  I  got  the  horse  put  up,  and  went  for  a 
walk  in  the  demesne.  The  day  was  very  warm  and 
bright,  and  I  wandered  on  under  the  shade  of  the  trees 
to  the  side  of  a  lake,  which  is  in  the  demesne.  Being 
at  length  tired,  I  sat  down  to  rest  upon  a  rock  at  the 
edge  of  the  water.  My  attention  was  quite  taken  up 
with  the  extreme  beauty  of  the  scene  before  me.  There 
was  not  a  sound  or  movement,  except  the  soft  ripple 
of  the  water  on  the  sand  at  my  feet.  Presently  I  felt  a 
cold  chill  creep  thru  me,  and  a  curious  stiffness  of  my 
limbs,  as  if  I  could  not  move,  though  wishing  to  do  so. 
I  felt  frightened,  yet  chained  to  the  spot,  and  as  if  im¬ 
pelled  to  stare  at  the  water  straight  in  front  of  me. 
Gradually  a  black  cloud  seemed  to  rise,  and  in  the  midst 
of  it  I  saw  a  tall  man,  in  a  suit  of  tweed,  jump  into  the 
water  and  sink. 

“In  a  moment  the  darkness  was  gone,  and  I  again 
became  sensible  of  the  heat  and  sunshine,  but  I  was 
awed,  and  felt  ‘eerie’ — it  was  then  about  four  o’clock 
or  so — I  cannot  remember  either  the  exact  time  or  date. 
On  my  sister’s  arrival  I  told  her  of  the  occurrence ;  she 
was  surprised,  but  inclined  to  laugh  at  it.  When  we 
got  home  I  told  my  brother;  he  treated  the  subject  in 
much  the  same  manner.  However,  about  a  week  after¬ 
ward,  Mr.  Espie,  a  bank  clerk  (unknown  to  me),  com¬ 
mitted  suicide  by  drowning  in  that  very  spot.  He  left 
a  letter  for  his  wife,  indicating  that  he  had  for  some 
time  contemplated  his  death.  My  sister’s  memory  of 
the  event  is  the  only  evidence  I  can  give.  I  did  not 
see  the  account  of  the  inquest  at  the  time,  and  did  not 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  169 

mention  my  strange  experience  to  any  one,  saving  my 
sister  and  brother.”1 

Another  example  was  communicated  to  Professor 
Richet  by  Professor  Thoulet. 

“During  the  summer  of  1867  I  was  officially  the  as¬ 
sistant,  but  in  reality  the  friend,  in  spite  of  difference 
in  age,  of  M.  F.,  a  former  officer  in  the  navy,  who  had 
gone  into  business.  We  were  trying  to  set  on  foot 
again  the  exploitation  of  an  old  sulphur  mine  at  Riva- 
nazzaro,  near  Voghera,  in  Piedmont,  which  had  been 
long  abandoned  on  account  of  a  falling  in.  .  .  . 

“I  knew  that  Madame  F.,  who  lived  at  Toulon,  and 
with  whom  I  was  slightly  acquainted,  would  soon  be 
confined.  .  .  . 

“M.  F.  and  I  slept  in  adjoining  rooms,  and  as  it  was 
hot,  we  left  the  door  between  them  open.  One  morn¬ 
ing  I  sprang  suddenly  out  of  bed,  crossed  my  room, 
entered  that  of  M.  F.,  and  awakened  him  by  crying 
out:  ‘You  have  just  got  a  little  girl;  the  telegram 
says  .  .  Upon  this  I  began  to  read  the  telegram. 

M.  F.  sat  up  and  listened ;  but  all  at  once  I  understood 
that  I  had  been  asleep,  and  that  consequently  my  tele¬ 
gram  was  only  a  dream,  not  to  be  believed ;  and  then, 
at  the  same  time,  this  telegram,  which  was  somehow 
in  my  hand,  and  of  which  I  had  read  about  three  lines 
aloud,  word  for  word,  seemed  to  withdraw  from  my 
eyes  as  if  some  one  were  carrying  it  off  open  ;  the  words 
disappeared,  though  their  image  still  remained ;  those 
which  I  had  pronounced  remained  in  my  memory,  while 
the  rest  of  the  telegram  was  only  a  form. 


'From  the  Report  on  the  Census  of  Hallucinations  in  the 
S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  10,  p.  332. 


170 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“I  stammered  something;  M.  F.  got  up  and  led  me 
into  the  dining-room,  and  made  me  write  down  the 
words  I  had  pronounced;  when  I  came  to  the  lines 
which,  though  they  had  disappeared  from  my  memory, 
still  remained  pictured  in  my  eye,  I  replaced  them  by 
dots,  making  a  sort  of  drawing  of  them.  Remark  that 
the  telegram  was  not  written  in  common  terms;  there 
were  about  six  lines  of  it,  and  I  had  read  more  than 
two  of  them.  .  .  . 

“Two  or  three  days  after  I  left  for  Toree;  I  tried  in 
vain  to  remember  the  rest  of  the  telegram ;  I  went  on 
to  Turin,  and  eight  or  ten  days  after  my  dream  I  re¬ 
ceived  the  following  telegram  from  M.  F. :  ‘Come  di¬ 
rectly.  You  were  right.’ 

“I  returned  to  Rivanazzaro,  and  M.  F.  showed  me  a 
telegram  which  he  had  received  the  evening  before. 
I  recognized  it  as  the  one  I  had  seen  in  my  dream ;  the 
beginning  was  exactly  what  I  had  written,  and  the  end, 
which  was  exactly  like  my  drawing,  enabled  me  to 
read  again  the  words  which  I  saw  again.  Please  re¬ 
mark  that  the  confinement  had  taken  place  the  evening 
before,  and  therefore  the  fact  was  not  that  I,  being  in 
Italy,  had  seen  a  telegram  which  already  existed  in 
France — this  I  might  with  some  difficulty  have  under¬ 
stood — but  that  I  had  seen  it  ten  days  before  it  existed, 
or  could  have  existed,  since  the  event  it  announced  had 
not  yet  taken  place.  I  have  turned  this  phenomenon  over 
in  my  memory,  and  reasoned  about  it  many  times,  try¬ 
ing  to  explain  it,  to  connect  it  with  something,  with  a 
previous  conversation,  with  some  mental  tension,  with 
an  analogy,  a  wish — and  all  in  vain.” 


William  T.  Stead 

Editor  of  the  English  “Review  of  Reviews,”  writer  and  humanitarian — 
an  earnest  believer  in  spiritualism. 


‘I  DO  NOT  BELIEVE  THE  DEAD  DEPART.” 


The  question,  “Do  the  Dead  Return?”  is  best  answered  by 
asking  another  question:  “Do  the  dead  depart?” 

I  do  not  believe  the  dead  depart.  They  are  still  with  us, 
closer  and  nearer  than  they  ever  were  before  they  laid  aside 
this  earthly  vesture  of  decay. 

The  space  at  my  disposal  is  too  brief  to  set  forth  even  in 
barest  outline  the  reasons  which  have  brought  me  to  this 
conviction.  But  they  are  such  that  I  do  not  believe  any  fair- 
minded,  inteligent  person,  who  will  devote  himself  to  a  care¬ 
ful  examination  of  the  phenomena  on  which  this  conviction 
rests,  will  come  to  any  other  conclusion  than  that  at  which 
I  have  arrived. 

Recent  scientific  discoveries  have  rendered  the  hypothesis  of 
communication  between  the  living  and  the  so-called  dead 
much  more  thinkable  by  the  average  man  that  it  was  fifty 
or  even  fifteen  years  since.  Photography,  the  telephone,  the 
X-rays  and  wireless  telegraphy  are  accustoming  mankind  to 
the  possibility  of  many  things  which  our  fathers  would  have 
dismissed  as  absolutely  incredible.  Fifty  years  ago  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  holding  vocal  converse  with  a  friend  at  a  distance  of  a 
hundred  miles  would  have  been  scouted  as  scientifically  out 
of  the  question.  To  hear  a  voice  while  seeing  no  man  was 
in  former  times  deemed  so  uncanny  an  experience  as  to  justify 
an  assumption  of  a  supernatural  agency. 

All  previous  generations,  as  the  result  of  invariable  expe¬ 
rience,  linked  together  as  an  obvious  axiom  that  when  the 
ear  could  hear  the  eye  must  be  able  to  see  the  speaker.  That 
assumption  has  been  broken  down  by  the  telephone. 

Wireless  telegraphy  has  familiarized  us  with  the  possibility 
of  transmitting  thought  by  electric  waves  even  across  the 
Atlantic  without  the  need  of  a  telegraph  cable.  The  phe¬ 
nomena  of  thought-reading  or  telepathy  have  shown  that 
mind  can  communicate  with  mind  without  an  electric  battery. 

171 


173  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

All  these  things  have  done  much  to  break  down  skepticism, 
and  I  no  longer  fear  being  written  down  as  a  lunatic  when 
I  say  that  I  have  the  same  confidence  as  to  the  certainty  of 
communication  with  friends  who  have  passed  over  into  the 
other  world  as  I  have  in  our  ability  to  talk  through  the  tele¬ 
phone  to  distant  friends. 

Several  years  ago  a  dearly  loved  friend  of  mine  promised 
me  that  if  she  passed  over  before  I  did  she  would  endeavor 
to  do  four  things:  (i)  She  would  use  my  hand  by  means  of 
automatic  writing  to  communicate  with  me;  (2)  she  would 
make  herself  visible  in  her  habit  as  she  lived  to  one  or  more 
of  her  friends  who  possessed  the  gift  of  seeing;  (3)  she  would 
come  and  be  photographed;  (4)  she  would  control  some  medium 
and  give  me  a  message  hall-marked  as  genuine  by  a  private 
sign  known  only  to  her  and  myself. 

Within  a  year  of  her  death  she  did  all  four.  She  wrote  with 
my  hand  describing  her  experiences  after  her  transition.  She 
appeared  once  in  broad  daylight  in  the  street  to  one  friend. 
To  another  she  appeared  in  a  well-lighted  dining-room  when 
dinner  was  being  served,  and  she  also  appeared  to  a  third  less 
publicly.  She  has  been  photographed  four  or  five  times,  the 
portrait  being  instantly  recognizable  by  all  who  knew  her, 
although  except  to  clairvoyants  no  form  was  visible  before  the 
camera.  None  of  the  photographs  so  produced  was  identical 
with  any  of  those  taken  during  her  earth-life.  The  fourth  and 
last  test  was  given  unexpectedly  by  a  strange  medium  to  a 
friend  of  mine.  It  referred  to  an  incident  that  transpired  at 
her  death,  and  it  was  accompanied  by  the  mathematical  sym¬ 
bol  which  we  had  privately  agreed  upon  as  the  one  which 
should  be  the  test  or  hall-mark  of  her  identity. 

— William  T.  Stead. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


GHOSTS 

Perhaps  no  one  class  of  spiritualistic  phenomena 
bulks  more  important  in  the  popular  imagination  than 
that  of  apparitions  of  the  dead.  Indeed,  “ghosts,”  if 
the  spiritualist  can  prove  that  they  exist,  whatever 
explanation  we  put  upon  their  appearance,  must  be 
conceded  an  important  link  in  our  chain  of  evidence 
regarding  a  life  after  death. 

Very  early  in  its  career  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Edmund  Gur¬ 
ney,  undertook  the  study  of  apparitions,  and  with  such 
success  that  they  were  soon  able  to  assert  that  they 
had  proved  there  were  such  things  as  “ghosts.”  They 
compiled,  over  a  period  of  many  months,  a  careful  Cen¬ 
sus  of  Hallucinations  observed  by  over  seventeen  thou¬ 
sand  individuals.  The  work  was  in  the  hands  of  a 
special  committee,  of  which  Mr.  Frank  Podmore,  Pro¬ 
fessor  Henry  Sidgewick  and  F.  W.  H.  Myers  were 
members,  and  associated  with  them  were  some  four 
hundred  enumerators. 

These  last  were  asked  to  propound  to  twenty-five 
adults,  chosen  at  random,  the  following  question: 

“Have  you  ever,  when  believing  yourself  to  be  com¬ 
pletely  awake,  had  a  vivid  impression  of  seeing  or  be¬ 
ing  touched  by  a  living  being  or  inanimate  object,  or  of 

173 


174 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


hearing  a  voice;  which  impression,  so  far  as  you  could 
discover,  was  not  due  to  any  external  physical  cause?” 

Every  effort  was  made  to  remove  bias,  pro  or  con, 
and  to  secure  honest  answers,  without  regard  to  the 
possible  final  result. 

This  result  was,  however,  as  we  have  seen,  startling. 
After  deducting  all  questionable  hallucinations  due  by 
any  possibility  to  sleep  or  disease  (insanity  or  de¬ 
lirium),  there  remained  one  thousand  six  hundred  and 
eighty-four  answers,  or  ten  per  cent.,  more  or  less 
strongly  affirmative.  Three  hundred  and  fifty-two  of 
these  “ghosts”  which  were  seen  were  apparitions  of 
living  persons,  and  one  hundred  and  sixty-three  appa¬ 
ritions  of  the  dead.  But,  more  than  this,  sixty-three 
of  these  were  circumstantially  attested  apparitions  al¬ 
most  or  quite  coincident  (within  twelve  hours)  with 
the  time  of  death.  Allowance  on  the  one  hand  for  pos¬ 
sible  lapse  of  memory,  and  on  the  other  every  leeway 
for  possible  error,  fraud,  or  coincidence  in  the  testi¬ 
mony,  reduced  the  number  of  accepted  coincidences 
one-third. 

Perhaps  the  startling  nature  of  the  fact  just  given 
is  not  at  first  sight  apparent.  Here  we  have  a  half 
hundred  people  out  of  seventeen  thousand-odd  who  say 
that  they  saw  a  ghost  of  a  person  within  twelve  hours 
of  that  person’s  death.  Well,  what  of  it?  you  say.  Ad¬ 
mitting  these  people  are  honest  in  their  belief,  you 
prove  nothing ;  it  may  have  been  all  their  imagination ; 
as  the  scientist  would  say,  their  “ghosts”  were  all  hal¬ 
lucinatory,  apparitions  which  existed  merely  in  the 
minds  of  the  percipients,  and  without  any  objective 
quality. 

But  the  committee  combined  with  their  census  a 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


175 


few  statistics.  It  took  but  very  little  simple  mathe¬ 
matics  to  ascertain  that  at  the  current  annual  death 
rate  for  England  and  Wales  (19.15  per  1,000  in  1890) 
the  chances  that  any  given  person  would  die  on  a 
given  day  were  nineteen  thousand  to  one.  This  meant 
that,  if  nineteen  thousand  apparitions  of  living  persons 
were  witnessed  on  a  given  day,  one,  and  one  only, 
by  the  laws  of  chance,  should  be  that  of  a  person  dying, 
about  to  die,  or  recently  dead. 

But — and  mark  you,  this  is  the  significant  point — 
we  have  in  the  Census ,  as  we  have  seen,  not  twice  or 
even  a  hundred  times  this  number,  but  over  four  hun¬ 
dred  times  this  number  which,  by  chance  alone,  should 
have  occurred. 

The  complete  results  of  the  Census  were  printed  in 
Myers’  Phantasms  of  the  Living  and  in  the  Proceed¬ 
ings  of  the  Society,  together  with  all  the  figures  ob¬ 
tained,  and  the  methods  and  allowances  used  in  secur¬ 
ing  the  final  result.  Not  a  person,  after  an  examina¬ 
tion  of  the  evidence,  can  question  the  absolute  fair¬ 
ness  of  calculation  and  the  large  margin  of  possible 
error  allowed.  Yet  the  Census  rendered  unavoidable 
this  very  striking,  and,  indeed,  epoch-making  conclu¬ 
sion,  which  the  committee  italicized :  “ Between  deaths 
and  apparitions  of  the  dying  person  a  connection  exists 
which  is  not  due  to  chance.  This  we  hold  as  a  proved 
fact.” 

And  the  point  is  not  merely  that  in  some  mysterious 
way  a  person  is  more  likely  at  about  the  time  of  an¬ 
other  person’s  death  to  see  (or  think  he  sees)  an  appa¬ 
rition  of  that  person.  If  we  think  a  moment  we  see 
that  the  real  truth  is  deeper  and  more  important. 

In  most  of  the  cases  the  “percipient”  (the  person 


176 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


who  saw  the  apparition)  did  not  know  that  the  person 
was  dying  (or  dead) :  in  very  many  cases  he  was  not 
thinking  of  the  dying  person  at  all,  and  did  not  even 
know  that  he  was  ill,  or  (if  death  was  due  to  an  acci¬ 
dent)  that  he  was  in  any  possibility  of  danger.  In 
other  words,  there  would  be  no  reason  why  the  per¬ 
cipient  should  at  that  moment  see  an  apparition,  except 
that  at  that  moment  the  apparition  did  really  exist. 
One  man  might ,  some  day,  happen  to  have  an  hallu¬ 
cination  of  a  man  at  that  moment  dying.  But  if  a 
hundred  men  “happen”  to  have  hallucinations  of  peo¬ 
ple  at  that  moment  they  are  dying,  we  have  every 
reason  to  say  that  here  is  something  more  than  mere 
hallucination — that  the  ghosts  seen  really  do  exist. 

And  striking  as  this  mathematical  proof  is,  it  is  still 
not  the  most  convincing,  as  Myers  well  points  out. 

“I  must  add  that  while  this  argument  from  statis¬ 
tics  and  percentages  .  .  .  constitutes  technically  the 
strongest  support  of  the  thesis  of  causal  connection 
between  deaths  and  apparitions,  it  is  yet  by  no  means 
the  only  support,  nor  even  the  most  practically  con¬ 
vincing.  Those  deaths  and  those  apparitions  are  not 
mere  simple  momentary  facts — as  tho  we  were  deal¬ 
ing  with  two  clocks  which  struck  simultaneously.  Each 
is  a  complex  occurrence,  and  the  correspondence  is 
often  much  more  than  a  mere  coincidence  of  time  alone. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  the  alleged  coincidence  is  so  de¬ 
tailed  and  intimate  that,  if  the  evidence  for  a  single 
case  is  fully  believed,  the  case  is  enough  to  carry  con¬ 
viction.”1 


’Myers :  Human  Personality,  v.  I,  pp.  573-4- 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


177 


“Spirit  Photography” 

If  a  “ghost”  can  make  impression  on  the  eye — that 
is,  be  seen — why  can  it  not  make  an  impression  on  a 
photographic  plate?  More  than  this,  since  the  pho¬ 
tographic  plate  is  incontestably  more  sensitive  than  the 
human  eye,  that  is,  sensitive  to  rays  that  we  cannot 
“see”  at  all,  what  more  possible — nay,  even  probable — 
than  that  the  camera  shall  record  the  presence  of 
“ghosts”  utterly  invisible  to  the  eye?  And  what  fur¬ 
ther  or  stronger  proof,  continues  the  advocate  of  “spirit 
photography,”  what  further  or  stronger  proof  is  neces¬ 
sary  in  support  of  apparitions  than  the  appearance  of 
unmistakable  pictures  of  them  upon  a  photographic 
plate?  The  camera  cannot  lie. 

There  is  the  crux  of  the  discussion  of  this  particular 
class  of  phenomena ;  we  know  very  well  that  the  cam¬ 
era  is,  on  occasion,  a  most  accomplished  and  unblush¬ 
ing  liar;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  those  best  qualified 
to  judge  look  on  every  spirit  photograph  with  well- 
founded  suspicion.  The  subject  is,  however,  one  so 
closely  allied  with  that  of  apparitions,  and  so  widely 
considered  a  part  of  spiritism,  that  before  proceeding 
further  with  our  “ghosts”  we  will  examine  it  a  little, 
if  only  to  dismiss  it  from  consideration. 

“Fraud  has  been  writ  large  over  spirit  photography,” 
says  Dr.  Funk,  “and  all  spirit  photographs  are  viewed 
by  the  public  with  more  suspicion,  perhaps,  than  is  any 
other  class  of  psychic  phenomena.”1  “That  these  spirit 
photographs,”  adds  Mr.  Carrington,  “can  be  produced 
by  trickery  no  one  doubts  who  is  acquainted  with  the 


"Funk :  The  Widow's  Mite,  p.  451. 


178 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


evidence  and  the  facts  in  the  case.  Granting  that  the 
medium  is  free  to  manipulate  the  plates,  before,  during 
and  after  the  seance,  or  at  any  one  of  these  times,  it 
is  well  known  that  he  is  able  to  produce  exact  repro¬ 
ductions  of  supposedly  spirit  forms  by  purely  fraudu¬ 
lent  means.  .  .  .”l 

And  continuing,  Mr.  Carrington  outlines  some  of 
the  numerous  ways  in  which  fraudulent  spirit  photo¬ 
graphs  may  be  produced. 

“By  a  clever  device,  the  sensitive  plate  may  be  im¬ 
pressed  with  the  figure  of  a  ghost  while  in  the  dark 
slide,  on  the  way  to  or  from  the  operating-room,  or 
even  while  in  the  camera  itself.  Indeed,  twenty  differ¬ 
ent  varieties  of  deceptions  may  be  practiced  without 
exposure.  A  common  artifice  is  to  place  a  microscopic 
picture  within  the  camera  box,  so  that,  by  means  of  a 
small  magnifying  lens,  its  image  may  be  thrown  upon 
the  plate.  Spectral  effects  may  also  be  produced  by 
covering  the  back  of  a  sensitive  plate  with  pieces  of 
cut  paper,  and  using  artifices  well  known  to  retouch¬ 
ers.  .  .  .  Extraordinary  spectral  effects,  such  as  that 
of  a  man  shaking  hands  with  his  own  ghost,  cutting 
off  his  own  hand,  or  followed  by  his  own  doppleganger, 
may  be  produced  by  ‘masking,’  a  process  which  it 
would  take  too  long  to  describe  here.  There  is  scarcely 
any  conceivable  absurdity  in  portraiture  which  may 
not  be  accomplished  by  the  camera;  and  the  peculiari¬ 
ties  of  the  business  are  so  extraordinary,  the  opportuni¬ 
ties  for  humbug  so  excellent,  and  the  methods  and  mod¬ 
ifications  of  methods  whereby  spirit  photographs  may 


‘Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  206. 


Alleged  Genuine  “Spirit  Photograph”  Fraudulent  “Spirit  Photograph” 

(Reproduced  from  Funk’s  “The  Widow’s  Mite.”)  (Reproduced  from  phenomena  of 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


179 


be  manufactured,  so  numerous,  that  it  is  hopeless  for 
any  person  totally  ignorant  of  photography  to  detect 
fraud.”1 

Undoubtedly  the  most  usual  method  of  deception, 
however,  is  the  device  of  “double  exposure,”  a  trick 
perfectly  familiar  to  every  photographer.  The  sight 
of  the  hazy  “ghost”  in  the  developt  picture,  with  the 
furniture  behind  it  showing  dimly  thru  its  “spectral” 
robes,  is  quite  convincing — unless  you  know  how  it 
is  done. 

I  cannot  forbear  quoting  here  a  description,  most 
amusing  in  its  naivete,  of  another  mediumistic  trick 
closely  allied  to  spirit  photography. 

“Sometimes  a  circle  is  treated  to  the  rare  sight  of 
seeing  a  picture  form  or  materialize  before  their  eyes, 
when  no  human  hand  is  touching  the  canvas,  the  pic¬ 
ture  apparently  forming  upon  it  of  its  own  accord ! 
This  is  a  most  astonishing  test.  Here  is  the  explana¬ 
tion: 

“A  picture  is  made  with  concentrated  solutions  of 
sulphocyanide  of  potassium,  ferrocyanide  of  potassium 
and  tannin,  all  of  which  will  be  invisible  until  brought 
out  by  the  proper  reagent.  This  is  a  weak  solution 
of  tincture  of  iron,  which  is  thrown  upon  the  canvas 
by  means  of  an  atomizer.  The  first  then  comes  out 
red,  the  second  blue,  and  the  third  black.  Either  the 
medium,  or  a  confederate,  creeps  behind  the  canvas 
during  the  seance,  and  thoroly  sprays  over  the  back 
of  the  picture,  when  it  will  develop  as  stated.  In  order 
to  cover  the  sound  of  the  atomizer,  a  music-box  is  set 


’Carrington:  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  216. 


180 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


going,  or  the  sitters  are  requested  to  sing  ‘Nearer, 
My  God,  to  Thee.’  ”* 

But  altho  the  evidence  is  strongly  presumptive  of 
fraud  in  nearly  every  case  of  spirit  photography,  it 
would  be  hardly  fair  to  the  spiritualists  to  leave  the 
subject  without  citing  at  least  one  comparatively  well- 
attested  case  on  the  other  side.  This  particular  ex¬ 
periment  was  performed  by  the  Rev.  J.  T.  Wills,  D.D., 
pastor  of  the  Franklin  Street  Presbyterian  Church, 
San  Francisco,  Cal.,  and  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Funk.  “I 
wish  to  say  that  for  some  time  past  my  friend,  Dr. 
W.  J.  Pierce,  of  this  city,  had  been  telling  me  some 
strange  things  about  spirit  photography,  which  seemed 
to  be  incredible,  and  but  for  the  fact  that  they  were 
told  me  by  such  a  man  as  Dr.  Pierce,  I  should  have 
paid  no  attention  to  them;  but  having  known  him 
for  over  thirty  years  as  a  man  of  truth,  I  could  not 
doubt  his  word  for  one  moment,  but  fearing  it  possible 
that  the  doctor  might  be  deceived  in  some  way  in  the 
matter,  I  said  to  him  that  I  would  like  to  see  for  my¬ 
self  how  the  thing  was  done,  and,  if  possible,  find  out 
the  secret  of  the  process ;  and  so  to  gratify  my  wish, 
the  doctor  made  an  engagement  with  the  medium,  Mr. 
Edmund  Wyllie,  to  meet  me  at  the  doctor’s  office  on 
April  I,  at  4  p.m.,  where  the  doctor  has  a  dark  room, 
and  all  the  equipment  for  photography  development 
purposes.  At  the  time  appointed  I  went,  and  on  my 
way  I  called  at  a  place  where  photographic  supplies 
are  sold,  and  bought  a  half  dozen  4x5  Crown-Cramer 
sensitized  plates,  and  took  them  with  me  in  my  coat 
pocket  to  the  office,  where  I  met  the  medium,  who 


’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism ,  pp.  222-3. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


181 


impressed  me  as  being  an  honest  man.  After  some 
little  talk  with  him,  I  told  him  I  wanted  to  test  the 
matter  for  myself,  and  that  I  would  like  him  to  wash 
his  hands,  which  he  did,  first  in  alcohol,  then  with 
soap  and  water,  then  again  in  alcohol,  and  then  he  dried 
them  thoroly  with  a  clean  towel ;  and  when  his  hands 
were  examined,  and  found  to  be  perfectly  clean,  we 
went  into  the  dark  room,  which  was  not  really  dark, 
but  was  lighted  with  a  little  lamp  with  orange-color 
light,  such  as  photographers  use  in  the  developing- 
room.  Then  I  took  the  plates  out  of  my  pocket  and 
took  one  plate  out  of  the  package,  and  after  marking 
it  on  one  corner,  thus,  <£,  and  holding  it  at  each  cor¬ 
ner  of  the  end  toward  me,  I  held  the  plate  toward  the 
medium,  who  placed  his  hands,  the  one  on  top  of  the 
other,  underneath,  holding  the  plate  between  his  palms, 
while  I  continued  to  hold  on  to  the  corners  and  never 
let  it  go  from  my  grasp  for  one  instant,  until,  to  my 
surprise,  ...  I  heard  three  distinct  taps  upon  the 
plate ;  then  the  medium  removed  his  hands  and  I  put 
the  plate  at  once  into  the  developer  and  developt  it 
myself.  Neither  was  it  out  of  my  possession  for  one 
second  from  the  time  that  I  bought  it,  some  four  blocks 
away,  until  I  had  it  fully  developt ;  and  to  my  aston¬ 
ishment  .  .  .  there  was  the  face  of  a  lady  on  it,  and 
that  so  plain,  that  it  has  been  recognized  by  my  daugh¬ 
ter  as  the  likeness  of  a  lady  who  was  never  in  Cali¬ 
fornia,  and  who  died  in  England  several  years  ago.”1 

Apparitions  of  the  Living 

But  certainly  not  spirit  photography,  and  perhaps 
not  even  that  summing  up  of  the  Census  of  Hallucina- 


JQuoted  in  Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  pp.  463-4. 


182 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


tions,  seem  to  be  sufficient  reason  for  such  a  daringly 
positive  statement  as  the  following  one  of  Dr.  Savage : 

“There  is  no  sort  of  question  that  there  are  phan¬ 
tasms  of  both  the  dead  and  living ;  but  no  scientific  man 
takes  that  as  proving  immortality.  It  simply  raises 
a  question  as  to  what  they  are  and  what  they  mean. 
But  that  what  we  call  ghosts  exist,  no  unprejudiced 
student  has  the  slightest  doubt.”1 

Once  again  I  feel  called  upon  to  repeat  a  warning 
that  I  have  already  given.  I  cannot,  in  any  brief 
space,  begin  to  give  the  complete  arguments  for  or 
against  any  of  the  propositions  here  submitted.  For 
complete  briefs  of  either  side,  for  circumstantial,  re¬ 
peated  and  detailed  examples,  the  interested  reader 
must  turn  to  the  works  cited.  If  he  thinks  he  dis¬ 
covers  a  flaw  in  the  writer’s  presentation,  he  must  re¬ 
member  that  the  omission  was  purposed,  and,  indeed, 
rendered  necessary  by  the  treatment  adopted. 

But  let  him  remember  this :  there  are  no  gaps  wit¬ 
tingly  left  which  have  not  been  satisfactorily  filled  in 
the  primary  sources :  my  purpose  is  to  give  a  condensa¬ 
tion  of  the  results  obtained  by  others,  to  summarize 
the  salient  points  in  the  work  of  many  men.  When  I 
state  that  the  Census  “seems  to  prove”  the  coincidence 
of  death  apparitions,  I  mean  that  the  reader  who  dis¬ 
covers  apparent  loopholes  in  my  presentation  will  find, 
on  reference  to  the  original  work,  that  probably  all 
his  objections  were  foreseen  and  adequately  answered. 
Did  the  Census  itself  fail  to  present  a  connected  chain 
of  argument,  I  would  so  have  stated.  To  enter  into 
any  exhaustive  study  of  the  evidence  would  mean,  not 


'Savage :  Life  After  Death,  p.  257. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


183 


a  series  of  short  articles,  but  a  series  of  volumes.  I  can 
here  but  digest,  with  typical  examples,  the  results  ob¬ 
tained  by  reputable  men  who  have  themselves  made  the 
exhaustive  research. 

For  the  truth  of  the  occurrence  of  apparitions  of 
living  persons  there  is  a  formidable  amount  of  evi¬ 
dence;  so  much  so,  that  Dr.  Funk,  among  many  oth¬ 
ers,  says,  “it  now  seems  certain.” 

“Whether,”  he  adds,  “this  vision  is  mental,  or  seen 
by  the  eye,  is  not  yet  certainly  established.  It  is  cer¬ 
tain  that  the  person  who  sees  the  vision  is  often  as 
sure  that  he  sees  with  his  eyes  as  he  is  of  anything  else 
that  his  eyes  see.  .  .  ,”1 

The  first  instance  I  shall  give  is  a  premonitory  one 
(that  is,  one  shortly  before  death),  and  is  related  by  the 
distinguished  scientist,  Dr.  Geo.  J.  Romanes,  F.R.S. 

“Toward  the  end  of  March,  1878,  in  the  dead  of  the 
night,  while  believing  myself  to  be  awake,  I  thought 
the  door  at  the  head  of  my  bed  was  opened,  and  a 
white  figure  passed  along  the  side  of  the  bed  to  the 
foot,  where  it  faced  about  and  showed  me  it  was  cov¬ 
ered,  head  and  all,  with  a  shroud.  Then,  with  its 
hands  it  suddenly  parted  the  shroud  over  the  face,  re¬ 
vealing  between  its  two  hands  the  face  of  my  sister, 
who  was  ill  in  another  room.  I  exclaimed  her  name, 
whereupon  the  figure  vanished  instantly.  Next  day 
(and  certainly  on  account  of  the  shock  given  me  by 
the  above  experience)  I  called  in  Sir  W.  Jenner,  who 
said  my  sister  had  not  many  days  to  live.  She  died, 
in  fact,  very  soon  afterward. 

“I  was  in  good  health,  without  any  grief  or  anxiety. 


’Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  390. 


184 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


My  sister  was  being-  attended  by  our  family  doctor, 
who  did  not  expect  anything  serious ;  therefore,  I  had 
no  anxiety  at  all  on  her  account,  nor  had  she  herself. 
I  have  never,  either  before  or  after  this,  had  such  an 
experience.  .  .  Z’1 

This  is  but  a  sample  of  a  very  large  number  of  such 
“premonitory  apparitions”  contained  in  the  records  of 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  Several  others 
will  be  given  later  in  the  consideration  of  premonitions 
as  such. 

The  Projection  of  the  “Astral  Body”? 

If  ghosts  of  living  persons  can  occur  spontaneously 
there  is,  of  course,  the  possibility  that  they  can  be 
produced  at  will ;  and,  indeed,  we  find  that  there  are 
on  record  a  number  of  such  successful  attempts.  One 
very  striking  case  seen  by  a  Miss  G.,  happened  in 
broad  daylight,  and  was  the  result  of  a  strong  effort 
of  will  power  on  the  part  of  a  Mr.  Kirk,  who  made 
the  attempt  thus  to  project  his  own  “ghost.” 

“A  peculiar  occurrence  happened  to  me  on  the 
Wednesday  of  the  week  before  last,”  says  Miss  G., 
reporting  the  case  to  the  Society.  “In  the  afternoon 
(being  tired  by  a  morning  walk),  while  sitting  in  an 
easy  chair  near  the  window  of  my  room,  I  fell  asleep. 
At  any  time  I  happen  to  sleep  during  the  day  (which 
is  but  seldom),  I  invariably  awake  with  tired,  uncom¬ 
fortable  sensations,  which  take  some  little  time  to  pass 
off ;  but  that  afternoon,  on  the  contrary,  I  was  sud¬ 
denly  quite  wide  awake,  seeing  Mr.  Kirk  standing  near 
my  chair,  dressed  in  a  dark-brown  coat,  which  I  had 
frequently  seen  him  wear.  His  back  was  toward  the 


'Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  49. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


185 


window,  his  right  hand  toward  me ;  he  passed  across 
the  room  toward  the  door  .  .  .  but  when  he  got  about 
four  feet  from  the  door,  which  was  closed,  he  disap¬ 
peared.”1 

Another  case,  reported  at  length  by  Mr.  Myers,  is 
remarkable  for  two  reasons :  there  were  two  percipients 
and  the  experiment  was  repeated,  each  time  success¬ 
fully.  The  evidence  was  closely  examined  by  Mr.  Gur¬ 
ney,  and  is  corroborated  in  many  important  details, 
and  is  remarkably  strong  thruout.  The  account  is 
written  by  Mr.  S.  H.  B.,  who  “projected”  the  “ghost” 
of  himself  in  this  instance. 

“On  a  certain  Sunday  evening  in  November,  1881, 
having  been  reading  of  the  great  power  which  the 
human  will  is  capable  of  exercising,  I  determined  with 
the  whole  force  of  my  being  that  I  would  be  present  in 
spirit  in  the  front  bedroom  on  the  second  floor  of  a 
house  situated  at  22  Hogarth  Road,  Kensington,  in 
which  room  slept  two  ladies  of  my  acquaintance,  viz., 
Miss  L.  S.  V.  and  Miss  E.  C.  V.,  aged,  respectively, 
twenty-five  and  eleven  years.  I  was  living  at  this  time 
at  23  Kildare  Gardens,  a  distance  of  about  three  miles 
from  Hogarth  Road,  and  I  had  not  mentioned  in  any 
way  my  intention  of  trying  this  experiment  to  either 
of  the  above  ladies,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  was 
only  on  retiring  to  rest  upon  this  Sunday  night  that 
I  made  up  my  mind  to  do  so.  The  time  at  which  I 
determined  I  would  be  there  was  one  o’clock  in  the 
morning,  and  I  also  had  a  strong  intention  of  making 
my  presence  perceptible. 


1 Report  on  the  Census  of  Hallucinations.  S.  P.  R.  Proceed¬ 
ings,  Vol  X.,  p.  270. 


186 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“On  the  following  Thursday  I  went  to  see  the  ladies 
in  question,  and  in  the  course  of  conversation  (with¬ 
out  any  allusion  to  the  subject  on  my  part)  the  elder 
one  told  me  that  on  the  previous  Sunday  night  she 
had  been  much  terrified  by  perceiving  me  standing  by 
her  bedside,  and  that  she  screamed  when  the  apparition 
advanced  toward  her,  and  awoke  her  little  sister,  who 
saw  me,  also. 

“I  asked  her  if  she  was  awake  at  the  time,  and  she 
replied  most  decidedly  in  the  affirmative ;  and  upon 
my  inquiring  the  time  of  the  occurrence,  she  replied 
about  one  o’clock  in  the  morning. 

“This  lady,  at  my  request,  wrote  down  a  statement 
of  the  event  and  signed  it. 

“This  was  the  first  occasion  upon  which  I  tried  an 
experiment  of  this  kind,  and  its  complete  success  star¬ 
tled  me  very  much. 

“Besides  exercising  my  power  of  volition  very 
strongly,  I  put  forth  an  effort  which  I  cannot  find 
words  to  describe.  I  was  conscious  of  a  mysterious 
influence  of  some  sort  permeating  in  my  body,  and  had 
a  distinct  impression  that  I  was  exercising  some  force 
with  which  I  had  been  hitherto  unacquainted,  but  which 
I  can  now,  at  certain  times,  set  in  motion  at  will.”1 

The  account  is  verified  by  both  the  Misses  Verity. 

Dr.  Funk  notes  another  interesting  case,  where  a 
man’s  spirit — if  we  are  to  believe  his  account — traveled 
several  hundred  miles  by  train,  returning  to  his  body 
just  in  time  to  prevent  his  being  given  up  as  dead.  He 
seemed,  however,  to  be  invisible  to  others  thruout  this 
strange  experience. 


'Myers:  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  v.  i,  pp.  104-9. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


187 


Is  it  possible  that  a  human  being  can,  by  willing  to 
do  so,  send  a  ghost  of  itself  (what  an  East  Indian 
adept  would  call  its  “astral  body”)  hundreds  or  thou¬ 
sands  of  miles  almost  instantaneously?  Is  it  possible, 
in  the  first  place,  that  a  man’s  spirit,  accompanied,  or 
without  this  ghostly  body,  can  leave  the  material  body 
and  travel  at  will,  seemingly  regardless  of  time  or 
space  ?  It  may  seem  safer  to  say  that,  as  yet,  we  don’t 
know ;  but  there  are  instances  which  seem  to  point  in 
this  direction. 


Apparitions  of  the  Dead 

In  seeking  the  explanation  of  ghosts,  not  of  the  liv¬ 
ing  but  of  the  dead,  as  of  other  matters  lying  entirely 
outside  ordinary  human  experience,  our  only  clue,  as 
Myers  says,  is  some  attempt  at  continuity  with  what 
we  already  know.  Thus  we  have  seen  that  telepathy, 
and  even  clairvoyance,  are  not  inconceivable  in  this 
day  of  the  wireless  telephone,  the  proved  existence  of 
those  mysterious  rapid  vibrations  of  the  ether  of  which, 
as  yet,  we  know  tantalizingly  little  except  that  exist¬ 
ence,  and  the,  as  yet,  almost  unknown  “higher”  forces 
of  the  human  mind  and  body. 

But  granting  the  possibility  of  clairvoyance,  that  is, 
granting  the  projection,  for  many  miles,  of  a  power 
of  sight,  it  is  but  a  step  to  view  as  possible  the  similar 
projection  of  the  apparition  of  a  living  person.  And 
similarly,  as  Dr.  Hyslop  notes,  “If  thoughts  of  the  liv¬ 
ing  can  produce  hallucinations  at  a  distance,  it  is  but 
a  step  to  the  supposition  that  the  dead,  if  they  actually 
survive  death,  can  produce  similar  effects.  .  .  ”x 


'Hyslop :  Borderland  of  Psychical  Research,  p.  19 2. 


188 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“If  they  survive  death,”  you  will  notice.  But  be¬ 
fore  attempted  explanation,  let  us  consider  a  few,  a 
few  out  of  a  very  large  number,  of  typical  instances  of 
the  phenomena  itself. 

We  have  one  on  the  authority  of  no  less  a  person 
than  Lord  Brougham,  the  philosopher  and  scientist, 
who  was  traveling  in  Sweden  at  the  time  of  the  inci¬ 
dent  he  describes. 

“We  set  out  for  Gothenberg,  determined  to  make 
Norway.  About  one  in  the  morning,  arriving  at  a  de¬ 
cent  inn,  we  decided  to  stop  for  the  night.  Tired  with 
the  cold  of  yesterday,  I  was  glad  to  take  advantage 
of  a  hot  bath  before  I  turned  in,  and  here  a  most  re¬ 
markable  thing  happened  to  me — so  remarkable  that 
1  must  tell  the  story  from  the  beginning. 

“After  I  left  the  high  school  I  went  with  G.,  my 
first  intimate  friend,  to  attend  the  classes  in  the  uni¬ 
versity.  There  was  no  divinity  class,  but  we  frequently 
in  our  walks  discussed  and  speculated  upon  many  grave 
subjects — among  others,  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
and  on  a  future  state.  This  question,  and  the  possibil¬ 
ity,  I  will  not  say  of  ghosts  walking,  but  of  the  dead 
appearing  to  the  living,  were  subjects  of  much  specu¬ 
lation  ;  and  we  actually  committed  the  folly  of  draw¬ 
ing  up  an  agreement,  written  with  our  own  blood,  to 
the  effect  that  whichever  of  us  died  the  first  should 
appear  to  the  other,  and  thus  solve  the  doubts  we  had 
entertained  of  the  ‘life  after  death.’ 

“After  we  had  finished  our  classes  at  the  college, 
G.  went  to  India,  having  got  an  appointment  there  in 
the  civil  service.  He  seldom  wrote  to  me,  and  after 
the  lapse  of  a  few  years  I  had  almost  forgotten  him ; 
moreover,  his  family  having  little  connection  with  Edin- 


Spirit  Photography 

Alleged  photograph  of  an  ancient,  taken  in  Chicago  by  Mr.  Blackwell 
(on  the  left).  This  same  "spirit"  has  appeared  on  his  plates  in  many 
parts  of  the  world. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


189 


burgh,  I  seldom  saw  or  heard  anything  of  them,  so  that 
all  his  schoolboy  intimacy  had  died  out,  and  I  had 
nearly  forgotten  his  existence.  I  had  taken,  as  I  have 
said,  a  warm  bath,  and  while  lying  in  it,  and  enjoying 
the  comfort  of  the  heat  after  the  late  freezing  I  had 
undergone,  I  turned  my  head  around,  looking  toward 
the  chair  on  which  I  had  deposited  my  clothes,  as  I 
was  about  to  get  out  of  the  bath.  On  the  chair  sat  G., 
looking  calmly  at  me.  How  I  got  out  of  the  bath  I 
know  not,  but  on  recovering  my  senses  I  found  myself 
sprawling  on  the  floor.  The  apparition,  or  whatever 
it  was  that  had  taken  the  likeness  of  G.,  had  disap¬ 
peared.”1 

This,  it  will  be  noted,  rests  entirely  on  Lord  Brough¬ 
am’s  personal  word ;  but  remembering  the  bias  of  his 
writings,  it  seems  unlikely  that  he  would  fabricate  a 
ghostly  visit. 

Here  is  another  typical  instance  of  an  apparition 
occurring  at  or  soon  after  the  moment  of  death. 

“A  gentleman,”  says  Dr.  Hyslop,  relating  the  inci¬ 
dent,  “had  a  friend  whom  he  calls  J.  P.,  that  had  gone 
out  to  the  Transvaal,  in  Africa.  When  they  bade 
each  other  farewell  they  expected  to  see  each  other 
again.  But  one  night  the  narrator  had  gone  to  bed 
about  one  o'clock.  Early  in  the  morning  this  expe¬ 
rience  took  place: 

“  ‘Standing  by  my  bed,  between  me  and  the  chest  of 
drawers,  I  saw  a  figure,  which,  in  spite  of  the  unwonted 
dress — unwonted,  at  least,  to  me — and  of  a  full  black 
beard,  I  at  once  recognized  as  that  of  my  old  brother 
officer.  He  had  on  the  usual  khaki  coat  worn  by  the 

’Quoted  in  Hyslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  48-9. 


190 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


officers  on  active  service  in  eastern  climates.  A  brown 
leather  strap,  which  might  have  been  the  strap  of  his 
field-service  glass,  crossed  his  breast.  A  brown  leather 
girdle,  with  sword  attached  on  the  left  side,  and  revol¬ 
ver-case  on  the  right,  passed  around  his  waist.  On 
his  head  he  wore  the  ordinary  white  pith  helmet  of 
service.  I  noticed  all  these  particulars  in  the  moment 
that  I  started  from  sleep,  and  sat  up  in  bed  looking  at 
him.  His  face  was  pale,  but  his  bright  black  eyes 
shone  as  keenly  as  when,  a  year  and  a  half  before,  they 
had  looked  upon  me  as  he  stood  with  one  foot  on  the 
hansom,  bidding  me  adieu.’ 

“  ‘Fully  impressed  for  the  brief  moment  that  we  were 

stationed  together  at  C - ,  in  Ireland,  or  somewhere, 

and  thinking  I  was  in  my  barrack-room,  I  said,  “Hello, 
P. !  Am  I  late  for  parade  ?”  P.  looked  at  me  steadily 
and  replied,  “I’m  shot.” 

“  ‘  “Shot !”  I  exclaimed.  “Good  God !  How,  and 
where  ?” 

“  ‘  “Through  the  lungs,”  replied  P.,  and  as  he  spoke 
his  right  hand  moved  slowly  up  to  his  breast  until  the 
fingers  rested  over  the  right  lung. 

“  ‘“What  were  you  doing?”  I  asked. 

“  ‘  “The  general  sent  me  forward,”  he  answered,  and 
the  right  hand  left  the  breast,  to  move  slowly  to  the 
front,  pointing  over  my  head  to  the  window,  and  at 
the  same  moment  the  figure  melted  away.  I  rubbed 
my  eyes,  to  make  sure  I  was  not  dreaming,  and  sprang 
out  of  bed.  It  was  4.10  a.m.  by  the  clock  on  my  man¬ 
telpiece.’ 

“That  day  the  gentleman  looked  for  news  from  the 
war,  but  found  none,  and  spoke  to  a  friend  about  his 
experience,  and  on  the  next  day  the  news  placed  his 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


191 


friend,  J.  P.,  among-  the  killed  in  the  battle  of  Lang’s 
Neck.  The  London  Gazette  shows  that  the  man  was 
killed  probably  between  eleven  and  twelve  o’clock  on 
January  28.  It  seems  probable  that  the  narrator’s  time, 
4.10  in  the  morning,  is  wrong  for  his  experience,  but 
Mr.  Gurney  thinks  that  the  apparition  took  place  after 
death,  or  very  close  to  it.  .  .  .”1 

I  cannot  here  relate  another  interesting  case,  given 
by  Dr.  Hyslop  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Ira  Sayles,  of 
the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey,  of  an  apparition  of  a 
young  man  which  pointed  to  a  bullet  hole  over  its  right 
eye  (discovered  afterward  to  be  really  the  cause  of  his 
death)  ;  or  of  the  very  striking  case  of  the  twin  brother 
of  Mrs.  Storie,  already  mentioned,  who  was  run  over 
while  asleep  on  a  railroad  track.  Mrs.  Storie’s  narra¬ 
tive  is  given  at  length  in  Phantasms  of  the  Living;  and 
the  way  in  which  she  saw  the  entire  tragedy,  as  it  was 
taking  place  hundreds  of  miles  aivay  from  her,  makes 
very  interesting  reading.  Neither  can  I  do  more  than 
mention  the  gentleman  who  saw  an  apparition  of  his 
brother  in  a  theater  in  Toronto,  while  the  latter  was 
dying  in  China ;  or  the  interesting  case  reported  by  the 
well-known  writer  and  physician,  Dr.  S.  Weir  Mitch¬ 
ell  ;  or  of  the  apparition  of  Lord  L - ,  seen  by  the 

Duchess  of  Hamilton. 

The  Morton  “Haunting” 

Something  further,  however,  must  be  said  regard¬ 
ing  the  famous  Morton  case,  partly  because  it  is  prob¬ 
ably  the  best  authenticated  instance  of  “haunting”  on 

’Quoted  in  Hyslop:  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  pp. 
245-7- 


192 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


record,  partly  because  it  stands  as  a  type  of  a  large 
class.  Unlike  those  previously  mentioned,  this  is  an 
instance  where  the  ghost  appears  some  years  after  the 
death  of  the  person. 

The  case  was  most  fully  described  by  a  Miss  R.  C. 
Morton,  whose  paper,  a  Record  of  a  Haunted  House , 
appears  in  Volume  VIII  of  the  Proceedings.1  The 
ghost  in  question  was  seen  independently,  however, 
by  at  least  twenty  other  persons  besides  herself,  six 
of  whom  made  “independent  first-hand  statements.” 
These  witnesses  were  examined  by  Frederic  Myers 
personally,  and  their  testimony  was  so  detailed  and 
completely  corroborative  that,  were  this  an  incident  in 
ordinary  life,  the  assumption  would  be  considered 
proved  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt. 

The  house  in  which  the  Mortons  resided  “was  built 
about  the  year  i860;  the  first  occupant  was  Mr.  S., 
an  Anglo-Indian,  who  lived  in  it  for  about  sixteen 
years.  During  this  time,  in  the  month  of  August,  year 
uncertain,  he  lost  his  wife,  to  whom  he  was  passion¬ 
ately  attached,  and  to  drown  his  grief  took  to  drink¬ 
ing.  About  two  years  later  Mr.  S.  married  again. 
His  second  wife,  a  Miss  I.  H.,  was  in  hopes  of  curing 
him  of  his  intemperate  habits,  but  instead,  she  also 
took  to  drinking,  and  their  married  life  was  embittered 
by  constant  quarrels,  frequently  resulting  in  violent 
scenes.  .  .  .  She  died  on  September  23,  1878. 

“After  Mr.  S.’s  death  the  house  was  bought  by  Mr. 
L.,  an  elderly  gentleman,  who  died  rather  suddenly 


'The  following  quotations  regarding  the  case  are  from  this 
paper. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  193 

within  six  months  of  going  into  it.  The  house  then 
remained  empty  for  some  years — probably  four. 

“During  this  time  there  is  no  direct  evidence  of 
haunting,  but  when  inquiry  was  made  later  on,  much 
hearsay  evidence  was  brought  forward.  In  April,  1882, 
the  house  was  let  by  the  representatives  of  the  late 
Mr.  L.  to  Captain  Morton,  .  . 

Miss  Morton  continues: 

“The  family  consists  of  Captain  M.  himself ;  his 
wife,  who  is  a  great  invalid;  neither  of  whom  saw 
anything;  a  married  daughter,  Mrs.  K.,  then  about 
twenty-six,  who  was  only  a  visitor  from  time  to  time, 
sometimes  with,  but  more  often  without,  her  husband ; 
four  unmarried  daughters :  myself,  then  aged  nineteen, 
who  was  the  chief  percipient,  and  now  give  the  chief 
account  of  the  apparition ;  E.  Morton,  then  aged  eight¬ 
een;  L.  and  M.  Morton,  then  fifteen  and  thirteen; 
two  sons,  one  of  sixteen,  who  was  absent  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  time  when  the  apparition  was  seen ; 
the  other  then  six  years  old. 

“My  father  took  the  house  in  March,  1882,  none  of 
us  having  then  heard  of  anything  unusual  about  the 
house.  We  moved  in  toward  the  end  of  April,  and  it 
was  not  until  the  following  June  that  I  first  saw  the 
apparition. 

“I  had  gone  up  to  my  room,  but  was  not  yet  in  bed, 
when  I  heard  some  one  at  the  door,  and  went  to  it, 
thinking  it  might  be  my  mother.  On  opening  the  door 
I  saw  no  one ;  but  on  going  a  few  steps  along  the  pas¬ 
sage  I  saw  the  figure  of  a  tall  lady,  dressed  in  black, 
standing  at  the  head  of  the  stairs.  After  a  few  mo¬ 
ments  she  descended  the  stairs,  and  I  followed  for  a 
short  distance,  feeling  curious  what  it  could  be.  I 


194 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


had  only  a  small  piece  of  candle,  and  it  suddenly  burnt 
itself  out ;  and  being  unable  to  see  more,  I  went  back 
to  my  room. 

“The  figure  was  that  of  a  tall  lady,  dressed  in  black 
of  a  soft  woolen  material,  judging  from  the  slight 
sound  in  moving.  The  face  was  hidden  in  a  hand¬ 
kerchief  held  in  the  right  hand.  This  is  all  I  noticed 
then;  but  on  further  occasions,  when  I  was  able  to 
observe  her  more  closely,  I  saw  the  upper  part  of  the 
left  side  of  the  forehead  and  a  little  of  the  hair  above. 
Her  left  hand  was  nearly  hidden  by  her  sleeve  and  a 
fold  of  her  dress.  As  she  held  it  down,  a  portion  of  a 
widow’s  cuff  was  visible  on  both  wrists,  so  that  the 
whole  impression  was  that  of  a  lady  in  widow’s  weeds. 
There  was  no  cap  on  the  head,  but  a  general  effect 
of  blackness  suggested  a  bonnet,  with  long  veil  or 
a  hood.” 

Somewhat  later  Miss  Morton  says,  for  her  narrative 
is  altogether  too  long  to  quote  in  full : 

“After  the  first,  I  followed  the  figure  several  times 
downstairs  into  the  drawing-room,  where  she  remained 
a  variable  time,  generally  standing  to  the  right-hand 
side  of  the  bow-window.  From  the  drawing-room  she 
went  along  the  passage  toward  the  garden  door,  where 
she  always  disappeared. 

“The  first  time  I  spoke  to  her  was  on  January  29, 
1884.  I  opened  the  drawing-room  door  softly  and  went 
in,  standing  just  by  it.  She  came  in  past  me  and 
walked  to  the  sofa  and  stood  still  there ;  so  I  went  up 
to  her  and  asked  her  if  I  could  help  her.  She  moved, 
and  I  thought  she  was  going  to  speak,  but  she  only 
gave  a  slight  gasp  and  moved  toward  the  door.  Just 
by  the  door  I  spoke  to  her  again,  but  she  seemed  as 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


195 


if  she  were  quite  unable  to  speak.  She  walked  into 
the  hall,  and  then  by  the  side  door  she  seemed  to  disap¬ 
pear  as  before.” 

Miss  Morton  then  proceeds  to  relate  a  large  num¬ 
ber  of  instances  when  the  apparition  was  seen,  by  many 
different  people,  on  one  occasion  by  as  many  as  four 
people  in  one  evening. 

The  apparition  continued  to  be  seen  at  intervals 
during  the  next  three  years. 

“At  Mr.  Myers’  suggestion,  I  kept  a  photographic 
camera  constantly  ready  to  try  to  photograph  the  fig¬ 
ure,  but  on  the  few  occasions  I  was  able  to  do  so,  I  got 
no  result;  at  night,  usually  only  by  candlelight,  a  long 
exposure  would  be  necessary  for  so  dark  a  figure,  and 
this  I  could  not  obtain.” 

The  narrative  thruout  is  a  very  remarkable  one. 
Miss  Morton,  as  Dr.  Funk  notes,  was  a  “capital  wit¬ 
ness,  not  being  in  the  least  nervous.”  Frequently,  she 
says,  she  “tried  to  communicate  with  the  figure,  con¬ 
stantly  speaking  to  it,  and  asking  it  to  make  signs,  if 
not  able  to  speak,  but  with  no  result.  I  also  tried 
especially  to  touch  her,  but  did  not  succeed.  On  cor¬ 
nering  her,  as  I  did  once  or  twice,  she  disappeared.” 

Myers  says  that  Miss  Morton  had  “scientific  training, 
and  was  at  the  time  her  account  was  written  (April, 
1892)  preparing  to  be  a  physician.” 

Here  are  the  “proofs  of  immateriality”  of  the  appa¬ 
rition,  with  which  Miss  Morton  sums  up  her  account: 

I.  “I  have  several  times  fastened  fine  strings  across 
the  stairs,  at  various  heights,  before  going  to  bed,  but 
after  all  others  have  gone  up  to  their  rooms.  ...  I 
made  small  pellets  of  marine  glue,  into  which  I  in¬ 
serted  the  ends  of  the  cord,  then  stuck  one  pellet  lightly 


196 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


against  the  wall  and  the  other  to  the  banister,  the  string 
being  thus  stretched  across  the  stairs.  They  were 
knocked  down  by  a  very  slight  touch,  and  yet  would 
not  be  felt  by  any  one  passing  up  or  down  the  stairs, 
and  by  candlelight  could  not  be  seen  from  below.  They 
were  put  at  various  heights  from  the  ground,  from  six 
inches  to  the  height  of  the  banister,  about  three  feet. 
I  have  twice  at  least  seen  the  figure  pass  through  the 
cords,  leaving  them  intact. 

2.  “The  sudden  and  complete  disappearance  of  the 
figure  while  still  in  view. 

3.  “The  impossibility  of  touching  the  figure.  I  have 
repeatedly  followed  it  into  a  corner,  when  it  disap¬ 
peared,  and  have  tried  to  suddenly  pounce  upon  it, 
but  have  never  succeeded  in  touching  it  or  getting  my 
hand  up  to  it,  the  figure  eluding  my  touch. 

4.  “It  has  appeared  in  a  room  with  the  doors  shut. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  figure  was  not  called  up  by  a 
desire  to  see  it,  for  on  every  occasion  when  we  had 
made  special  arrangements  to  watch  for  it  we  never 
saw  it.  .  .  .” 

1  We  must  remember,  too,  that  the  figure  was  seen 
“by  about  twenty  people,  many  of  them  not  having 
previously  heard  of  the  apparition.”  Tho  its  identity 
— and  this  question  of  identity  becomes  of  importance 
a  little  later — was  never  proved,  Miss  Morton  be¬ 
lieves,  for  the  following  reasons,  that  it  was  the  second 
Mrs.  S.: 

“1.  The  complete  history  of  the  house  is  known,  and 
if  we  are  to  connect  the  figure  with  any  of  the  previous 
occupants,  she  is  the  only  person  who  in  any  way  re¬ 
sembled  the  figure ;  and  the  figure  is  undoubtedly  con¬ 
nected  with  the  house,  none  of  the  percipients  having 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  197 

seen  it  anywhere  else,  nor  had  any  other  hallucina¬ 
tion. 

“2.  The  widow’s  garb  excludes  the  first  Mrs.  S. 

“3.  Altho  none  of  us  had  ever  seen  the  second  Mrs. 
S.,  several  people  who  had  known  her  identified  her 
from  our  description.  On  being  shown  a  photo-album 
containing  a  number  of  portraits,  I  picked  out  one 
of  her  sister  as  being  most  like  that  of  the  figure,  and 
was  afterward  told  that  the  sisters  were  much  alike. 

“4.  Her  stepdaughter  and  others  told  us  that  she 
especially  used  the  front  drawing-room,  in  which  she 
continually  appeared,  and  that  her  habitual  seat  was 
on  a  couch  placed  in  a  similar  position  to  ours.  .  . 

'See  the  S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  8,  pp.  311-32;  also,  Funk: 
The  Widow's  Mite,  pp.  396-400;  Myers:  Human  Personality, 
v.  2,  pp.  389-96. 


/ 


“SURVIVAL  IS  IMPROBABLE" 


Survival  is  a  hypothesis  which  people  who  do  not  stop 
to  reflect  accept  complacently.  But  the  philosopher  is  a 
little  more  reserved. 

Life  is  painful  enough  not  to  give  us  any  very  brilliant  idea 
of  what  is  to  follow,  and  it  is  with  something  akin  to  terror 
that  I  figure  the  possibility  that  I,  my  ego,  my  consciousness, 
can  have  no  end,  and  will  live  eternally.  Who  knows,  in  that 
case,  what  is  reserved  for  me?  We  are  all,  all  such  deplor¬ 
able  cowards,  so  ridiculously  feeble  in  the  face  of  the  im¬ 
mensity  of  the  universe,  that  we  have  everything  to  fear  from 
the  colossal  forces,  perhaps  unjust,  perhaps  absurd,  which  will 
have  the  power,  perhaps  eternally,  to  submit  us  to  tortures 
and  to  misery. 

Happily  this  survival  is  improbable.  A  lamp  goes  out  when 
the  oil  is  finished.  The  consciousness  will  become  extinguished 
when  it  lacks  carbon  and  oxygen.  Then  it  will  be  night,  sleep, 
repose;  night  without  dawn,  sleep  with  no  awakening,  repose 
with  no  return  to  activity. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  some  who  believe  they  have  given 
scientific  proofs  of  survival.  But  these  proofs  are  very  fragile. 
Who  knows,  nevertheless,  but  that  one  day  new  proofs  will  be 
discovered?  Our  ignorance  is  so  profound  that  everything  is 
possible.  Metaphysics  is  making  such  progress  that  the  proofs, 
either  negative  or  positive,  may  perhaps  be  forthcoming. 

In  any  case,  we  may  be  assured  of  one  thing — that  this  will 
only  be  demonstrated  by  the  most  painstaking  and  laborious 
scientific  research.  This,  and  this  only,  will  shed  light  on 
the  future  of  our  “me,”  our  ego,  our  being. 

We  keep  track  rather  badly  of  the  march  of  ideas.  Every¬ 
thing  around  us  changes — costumes,  machinery,  language,  even 
— and  these  changes,  which  are  gradual,  pass  unperceived. 
Once  a  progression  has  been  effected  it  enters  so  rapidly  into 
our  manners  that  we  have  trouble  to  realize  that  it  has  not 
always  existed.  Young  people  to-day  do  not  imagine  that 
thirty  years  ago  the  telephone,  the  phonograph,  bicycles,  auto- 

198 


Mr.  Frank  Podmore 

Most  scholarly  of  all  the  anti-spiritualistic  investigators  of  psychical 
phenomena.  His  masterly  attack,  “A  History  of  Modern  Spiritualism,” 
is  the  authority. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


199 


mobiles,  sleeping-cars,  antiseptics,  X-rays,  and  even  the  theory 
of  microbes,  did  not  exist.  It  appears  to-day  as  though  these 
things  had  always  existed,  and  that  one  could  not  live  without 
them.  Nevertheless,  you  only  need  to  call  up  the  recollections 
of  a  man  of  my  generation,  and  he  will  tell  you  that  not  only 
these  things  were  unknown,  but  that  no  one  dreamed  that  they 
would  one  day  exist. 

We  change,  then,  and  we  change  very  rapidly,  but  by  little 
transitions,  imperceptibly. 

Now  in  psychical  science  everything  is  so  profoundly  modi¬ 
fied  that  to  get  any  idea  of  this  it  is  necessary  to  look  back 
about  thirty  years.  Thirty  years  ago  neither  animal  mag¬ 
netism,  nor  hypnotism,  nor  any  of  the  phenomena  called  occult, 
were  accepted.  Nor  did  any  one  give  himself  the  trouble  to 
study  them.  All  such  investigations  were  treated  with  a  smile 
of  incredulity  and  disdain.  The  most  simple  thing  was  to 
deny  everything.  In  the  encyclopedia  of  1875  the  definition 
given  for  animal  magnetism  is  thus  summed  up:  “Animal 
magnetism  does  not  exist.” 

The  doctrines  of  psychical  phenomena  were  flouted  equally 
by  the  sages  and  the  vulgar.  It  was  not  even  admitted  that 
an  honest  man  could  occupy  himself  seriously  with  such  “non¬ 
sense,”  to  try  to  discover  whether  the  manifestations  were 
true  or  false. 

This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  have  such  a  profound 
admiration  for  that  great  savant,  Sir  William  Crookes.  It  is 
not  alone  that  he  discovered  new  metals,  invented  admirable 
instruments  with  which  to  work,  by  which  fertile  discoveries 
have  been  made,  and  imagined  audacious  theories  the  profound 
penetration  of  which  each  day  confirms.  But  it  is  for  another 
thing  that  I  admire  him  most — for  his  scientific  courage!  The 
professional  courage  of  the  savant  is  equal  any  day  to  that  of 
the  soldier  who  rushes  with  fixed  bayonet  into  the  thick  of 
battle.  Sir  William  Crookes  was  one  of  the  first  of  the  scien¬ 
tific  men  to  dare  to  publish  his  investigations  in  spiritualistic 
phenomena.  And  this  opened  up  the  road  to  hundreds  more 
timid. 

To-day  young  students  talk,  as  a  matter  of  course,  of  animal 
magnetism,  hypnotic  suggestion,  and  other  phenomena  of  a 


200 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


similar  order.  They  cannot  imagine  the  discredit  such  ideas 
brought  down  upon  the  head  of  the  young  aspirant  of  three 
decades  ago.  I  remember  yet  when  I  told  my  father, 
by  whose  counsel  and  high  intelligence  I  was  always  guided, 
I  wanted  to  publish  my  investigations  on  somnambulism. 
He  cried:  “But,  my  boy,  do  you  want  to  ruin  your  career?” 

Happily,  one  is  never  quite  lost  when  one  defends  what 
one  believes  to  be  true.  So  I  am  convinced  that  in  the  near 
future,  after  new  facts  have  been  demonstrated,  after  able 
experimenters,  aided  by  powerful  mediums,  shall  have  thrown 
new  light  on  certain  phenomena  which  are  as  yet  rather  shad¬ 
owy,  we  shall  be  brought  to  modify  profoundly  all  of  our 
conceptions  on  metaphysics  and  metaphysical  manifestations. 
We  will  have  other  hypotheses  than  that  of  angels  and  spirits, 
or  of  human  emanations,  for  the  explanation  of  the  tipping  of 
tables  and  of  materialized  bodies.  There  is  a  force  which 
exists,  an  unknown  force,  as  truly  as  the  law  of  natural 
selection  existed  long  before  Darwin  so  named  it,  and  as 
the  theory  of  electricity  was  true  long  before  Ampere,  Faraday 
or  Franklin  made  their  discoveries  in  regard  to  it. 

Up  to  the  present  time  the  phenomena  which  we  have  been 
able  to  examine  have  been  only  fragmentary.  The  tie  which 
binds  them  escapes  us.  But  it  will  not  always  be  so.  The  day 
will  come  when  an  explanation  will  be  given,  an  explanation 
quite  different  to  all  those  which  our  ignorance  has  constructed. 
The  discovery  is  perhaps  quite  simple.  Let  us,  then,  have 
confidence  in  a  science  which  will  open  up  to  us  a  limitless 
horizon. 

Do  we  not  know  already  that  science  has  diminished  by 
one-half  the  miseries  and  ills  of  humanity,  miseries  into 
which  we  have  fallen  through  ignorance?  Well,  what  medical 
and  physical  science  has  done  for  the  human  body  may  we  not 
hope  metaphysical  science  in  turn  may  accomplish  for  the 
spiritual  self  when  the  question  of  survival  will  become  no 
longer  a  theory,  a  problem,  but  an  established  fact? 

Then  let  us  work,  study,  employ  sure  methods,  and  not 
abandon  ourselves  to  hollow  phrases  and  uncertain  hopes. 
Science  alone,  and  a  severe  science,  will  have  the  right  to 
solve  the  Grand  Problem.  — Charles  Richet. 


CHAPTER  IX 


WHAT  ARE  GHOSTS?— “MATERIALIZA¬ 
TIONS” 

It  is,  of  course,  useless  to  give  stories  of  ghostly 
appearances  with  any  great  hope  that  the  reality  of 
the  apparitions  will  be  accepted  by  the  reader,  no  mat¬ 
ter  how  circumstantial  the  accounts  may  be,  unless 
we  can  at  least  suggest  what  the  “ghost”  may  be,  and 
what  laws  govern  its  appearances. 

Now,  however  easy  it  may  be  to  “tell  ghost  stories” 
when  we  attempt  in  simple  language  to  give  any  ade¬ 
quate  scientific  explanation  of  the  phenomena  we  very 
quickly  find  ourselves  in  deep  water. 

“Whatever  else,  indeed,  a  ghost  may  be,”  says  My¬ 
ers,  “it  is  probably  one  of  the  most  complex  phenomena 
in  nature.  It  is  a  function  of  two  unknown  variables 
— the  incarnate  spirit’s  sensitivity  and  the  discarnate 
spirit’s  capacity  of  self-manifestation.  .  .  .”1 

First,  in  the  light  of  the  researches  of  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research,  what  is  a  ghost? 

“The  popular  view  regards  a  ghost  as  a  deceased 
person  permitted  by  Providence  to  hold  communion 
with  survivors.  And  this  short  definition  contains,  I 
think,”  says  Myers,  “at  least  three  unwarrantable  as¬ 
sumptions. 

‘Myers:  Human  Personality,  p.  229. 

201 


202 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“In  the  first  place,  such  words  as  permission  and 
Providence  are  simply  neither  more  nor  less  appli¬ 
cable  to  this  phenomenon  than  to  any  other.  We  con¬ 
ceive  that  all  phenomena  alike  take  place  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  of  the  universe,  and  consequently  by 
permission  of  the  Supreme  Power  in  the  universe.  Un¬ 
doubtedly,  the  phenomena  with  which  we  are  dealing 
are  in  this  sense  permitted  to  occur.  .  .  .  But  if  we 
attempt  to  find  in  these  phenomena  any  poetical  jus¬ 
tice,  or  manifest  adaptation  to  human  cravings,  we  shall 
be  just  as  much  disappointed  as  if  we  endeavored  to 
find  a  similar  satisfaction  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
terrene  history. 

“In  the  second  place,  we  have  no  warrant  for  the 
assumption  that  the  phantom  seen,  even  though  it  be 
somehow  caused  by  a  deceased  person,  is  the  deceased 
person,  in  any  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  Instead 
of  appealing  to  the  crude  analogy  of  the  living  friend, 
who,  when  he  has  walked  into  the  room,  is  in  the  room, 
we  shall  find  for  the  ghost  a  much  closer  parallel  in 
those  hallucinatory  figures  or  phantasms  which  living 
persons  can  sometimes  project  at  a  distance. 

“But  experience  shows  that  .  .  .  there  is  a  tendency, 
so  to  say,  to  anthropomorphose  the  apparition;  to  sup¬ 
pose  that,  as  the  deceased  person  is  not  provably  any¬ 
where  else,  he  is  probably  here ;  and  that  the  apparition 
is  bound  to  behave  accordingly.  All  such  assumptions 
must  be  dismissed,  and  the  phantom  must  be  taken 
on  its  merits,  as  indicating  merely  a  connection  with 
the  deceased.”1  .  .  .  “And  in  the  third  place,  just  as  we 
must  cease  to  say  that  the  phantom  is  the  deceased,  so 


‘The  italics  are  mine. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


203 


also  must  we  cease  to  ascribe  to  the  phantom  the  mo¬ 
tives  by  which  we  imagine  that  the  deceased  might  be 
swayed.  We  must,  therefore,  exclude  from  our  defini¬ 
tion  of  a  ghost  any  words  which  assume  its  intention 
to  communicate  with  the  living.  It  may  bear  such  a 
relation  to  the  deceased  that  it  can  reflect  or  repre¬ 
sent  his  presumed  wish  to  communicate,  or  it  may  not. 
If,  for  instance,  its  relation  to  his  post-mortem  life  be 
like  the  relation  of  my  dreams  to  my  earthly  life,  it 
may  represent  little  that  is  truly  his,  save  such  vague 
memories  and  instincts  as  give  a  dim  individuality  to 
each  man’s  trivial  dreams.”1 

No  one  could  state  more  clearly  than  does  Myers 
the  things  which  a  “ghost”  is  generally  suposed  to  be, 
but  which  science  says  it  is  not.  Now,  what  is  it? 

“Let  us  attempt,  then,”  continues  Mr.  Myers,  “a 
truer  definition.  Instead  of  describing  a  ghost  as  a 
dead  person  permitted  to  communicate  with  the  living, 
let  us  define  it  as  a  manifestation  of  persistent  personal 
energy,  or  as  an  indication  that  some  kind  of  force  is 
being  exercised  after  death  which  is  in  some  way  con¬ 
nected  with  a  person  previously  known  on  earth.  .  .  .”2 

This  is  far  from  being  as  definite  as  the  sensationalist 
might  desire ;  but  the  very  carefulness  of  its  generality 
renders  it  more  capable  of  scientific  acceptation  and 
further  investigation. 

Furthermore,  as  Myers  goes  on  to  state,  the  “spirit” 
of  the  person,  so  far  from  causing  the  “ghost”  of  him¬ 
self  to  be  seen,  may  not  even  know  that  his  “ghost” 
exists,  or  is  being  seen.  Nay,  more  than  that,  there 


’Myers:  Human  Personality,  Vol.  II.,  p.  3- 


’Ibid.,  p.  4. 


204 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


is  considerable  evidence  in  support  of  an  even  more 
striking  thesis,  namely,  that  a  ghost  may  be  simply  an 
impression  of  some  kind  on  the  ether  or  atmosphere 
not  requiring  any  action  on  the  part  of  the  deceased 
person,  voluntary  or  involuntary !  It  “may  be  (in  oth¬ 
er  words)  some  residue  of  the  force  or  energy  which 
he  generated  while  yet  alive,”  which  remains  hanging 
around  the  place  where  he  was  accustomed  to  be. 

Edmund  Gurney  suggests  this  theory  of  veridical 
after-images,  as  he  calls  them,  in  his  comment  upon 
the  “recurring  figure  of  an  old  woman — seen  on  the 
bed  where  she  was  murdered,”  stating  that  she  may  be 
only  “the  survival  of  a  mere  image,  impressed,  we  can¬ 
not  guess  how,  or  we  cannot  guess  what,  and  percep¬ 
tible  at  times  to  those  endowed  with  some  cognate  form 
of  sensitiveness.”1 

Now,  this  latter  theory,  if  correct,  means,  of  course, 
that  we  may  have  true  “ghosts,”  that  is,  sensible  appa¬ 
ritions  of  persons  that  have  died,  without  this  proving 
that  those  persons  have  any  continued  existence  after 
death  at  all.  They  may  have  died,  and  died  utterly 
“for  good  and  all,”  and  still  leave  behind  these  sort 
of  lifeless,  unsubstantial  “husks”  of  themselves  to  float 
around  their  habitual  haunts  for  weeks  or  years  after¬ 
ward. 

There  are,  indeed,  several  facts  that  seem  to  support 
the  theory  that  this  may  be  all  that  simple  “haunting” 
is.  This,  for  instance,  accounts  for  the  clothes  of  the 
ghost,  a  difficulty  which  in  other  cases  has  been  often 
urged,  “and  never,”  says  Mr.  Myers,  “satisfactorily 
answered.”  It  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  these 


*S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  4,  p.  417. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


205 


“haunts”  appear  in  the  places  frequented  by  the  de¬ 
ceased,  and  never  elsewhere ;  and  are  frequently  “laid,” 
according  to  the  popular  idea,  when  repairs  or  altera¬ 
tions  are  made  of  the  place  where  they  occur.  Such 
an  apparition  as  Miss  Morton’s  may  be  accounted  for 
wholly  by  this  hypothesis. 

But  tho  I  believe  this  theory  possible,  and,  indeed, 
probable  in  some  cases,  it  is  very  difficult  to  explain 
all  “ghosts”  in  this  way.  There  are  many  cases,  and 
several  reasons,  that  point  to  the  probability  of  the 
continued  existence  after  death  of  the  person  whose 
ghost  appears. 

Ghosts  occasionally  speak  (we  are  considering  now 
only  of  those  certified  by  the  records  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research).  They  appear  in  places  where 
they,  in  their  human  existence,  never  were,  and  to 
persons  whom  they  never  knew.  And  there  is  incon¬ 
testable  evidence  that  the  thought  and  emotion  of  liv¬ 
ing  persons  has  affected  the  movements  or  other  ac¬ 
tions  of  the  apparition ;  a  thing  that  could  not  happen 
were  the  “ghost”  merely  a  lifeless,  unsubstantial  husk. 

Not  All  “Ghosts”  Are  Subjective 

Before  closing  we  must  face  courageously  the  diffi¬ 
culty — and  this  is  the  first  and  strongest  argument 
brought  up  by  the  anti-spiritualist — that  these  appari¬ 
tions,  tho  possibly  believed  genuine  by  those  who  see 
them,  are  entirely  subjective;  that  is,  they  are  hallu¬ 
cinations,  that  exist  only  in  the  mind  of  the  person 
seeing  them. 

“There  remain  three,  and  I  think  only  three,  condi¬ 
tions,”  says  Mr.  Edmund  Gurney,  “which  might  es¬ 
tablish  a  presumption  that  an  apparition  or  other  imme- 


206 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


diate  manifestation  of  a  dead  person  is  something  more 
than  a  mere  subjective  hallucination  of  the  percipient’s 
senses.  Either  (i)  more  persons  than  one  might  be 
independently  affected  by  the  phenomenon;  or  (2)  the 
phantasm  might  convey  information,  afterward  dis¬ 
covered  to  be  true,  of  something  which  the  percipient 
had  never  known;  or  (3)  the  appearance  might  be 
that  of  a  person  whom  the  percipient  himself  had  never 
seen,  and  of  whose  aspect  he  was  ignorant,  and  yet 
his  description  of  it  might  be  sufficiently  definite  for 
identification.  .  .  -”1 

For  the  encouragement  of  the  would-be  believer  in 
spiritualistic  phenomena,  the  materialist  must  admit 
that  every  one  of  these  conditions  has  been  met  over 
and  over  again.  Miss  Morton’s  case  is  one  among 
many  where  a  “ghost”  has  been  seen  simultaneously  by 
several  observers.  (And  the  anti-spiritualist’s  answer 
to  this — namely,  that  one  of  these  persons  has  an  hal¬ 
lucination,  and  the  others  present  telepathically  receive 
from  him,  and  have  the  same  hallucination,  simulta¬ 
neously — does,  I  confess,  seem  to  me  a  trifle  far¬ 
fetched.)  The  ghost,  in  very  many  cases,  gives  infor¬ 
mation  unknown  to  the  percipients.  For  instance,  the 
officer  in  the  Transvaal,  and  the  young  man  mentioned 
by  Dr.  Sayles,  gave  information  about  their  own  deaths 
absolutely  unknown  to  those  who  saw  their  appari¬ 
tions. 

Miss  Morton’s  case,  also,  is  an  example  of  the  third 
requirement,  the  identification  of  the  ghost  of  a  stran¬ 
ger;  tho,  in  fairness  to  the  spiritualist,  it  should  be 
added  that  there  are  many  much  stranger  instances. 


JQuoted  in  Hyslop :  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  p.  240. 


!ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


207 


To  overturn  the  hallucination  theory  we  have,  also, 
however,  two  strong  positive  arguments. 

The  first  was  noted  in  our  account  of  the  Census  of 
Hallucinations,  namely,  that  seemingly  conclusive  body 
of  proof  connecting  ghosts  directly  with  the  decease  of 
their  owner.  Mr.  Gurney  puts  the  case  very  neatly :  ! 

“According  to  the  doctrines  of  probabilities,  an  hal¬ 
lucination  representing  a  known  person  would  not,  by 
chance,  present  a  definite  time  relation  to  a  special  cog¬ 
nate  event — viz.,  the  death  of  that  person — in  more  than 
a  certain  percentage  of  the  whole  number  of  similar 
hallucinations  that  occur ;  and  if  that  percentage  is 
decidedly  exceeded,  there  is  reason  to  surmise  that 
some  other  cause  than  chance — in  other  words,  some 
objective  origin  for  the  phantasm — is  present.’’1 

Do  Animals  See  Apparitions? 

But  there  is  another  very  striking  collection  of  facts 
pointing  to  the  objective  reality  of  apparitions,  facts 
which  have  not,  it  seems  to  me,  been  treated  with  the 
importance  they  deserve.  I  speak  of  the  effect  which 
these  apparitions  have  had  upon  animals.  People,  you 
may  argue,  have  hallucinations;  do  animals?  And  do 
they  also  “receive  them  telepathically”  and  simultane¬ 
ously  from  humans? 

Alfred  Russell  Wallace  has  collected  a  number  of 
these  instances.  .  .  . 

“I  have  already  mentioned  the  case  of  the  female 
figure  in  white,  seen  by  three  persons,  floating  over  a 
hedge  ten  feet  above  the  ground,  when  the  horse  they 
were  driving  ‘suddenly  stopped  and  shook  with  fright.’ 
In  the  remarks  upon  this  case  in  Phantasms  of  the  Liv- 

‘See  the  S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  403-408. 


208 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


mg,  no  reference  is  made  to  this  fact,  yet  it  is  surely 
the  crucial  one,  since  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  a 
wholly  subjective  apparition,  seen  by  human  beings, 
would  also  be  seen  by  a  horse.  During  the  tremen¬ 
dous  knocking  recorded  by  Mr.  Garling  ...  it  is  stat¬ 
ed  that  there  was  a  large  dog  in  a  kennel  near  the  front 
entrance,  especially  to  warn  off  intruders,  and  a  little 
terrier  inside  that  barked  at  everybody ;  yet,  when  the 
noise  occurred  that  awakened  the  servants,  sixty  feet 
away,  ‘the  dogs  gave  no  tongue  whatever ;  the  terrier, 
contrary  to  its  nature,  slunk  shivering  under  the  sofa, 
and  would  not  stop  even  at  the  door,  and  nothing  could 
induce  him  to  go  into  the  darkness.’ 

“In  the  remarkable  account  of  a  haunted  house  dur¬ 
ing  an  occupation  of  twelve  months  by  a  well-known 
English  church  dignitary,  the  very  different  behavior 
of  dogs  in  the  presence  of  real  and  phantasmal  dis¬ 
turbances  is  pointed  out.  When  an  attempt  was  made 
to  rob  the  vicarage,  the  dogs  gave  prompt  alarm,  and 
the  clergyman  was  aroused  by  their  fierce  barking. 
During  the  mysterious  noises,  however,  tho  these  were 
much  louder  and  more  disturbing,  they  never  barked 
at  all,  but  were  always  ‘found  cowering  in  a  state  of 
pitiable  terror.’  They  are  said  to  have  been  more  .  .  . 
perturbed  than  any  other  members  of  the  establish¬ 
ment,  and  ‘if  not  shut  up  below,  would  make  their  way 
to  our  bedroom  door  and  lie  there,  crouching  and 
whining,  as  long  as  we  would  allow  them.’1 

“In  the  account  of  haunting  in  a  house  at  Ham¬ 
mersmith,  near  London,  which  went  on  for  five  years, 
where  steps  and  noises  were  heard,  and  a  phantom 


S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  151. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


209 


woman  seen,  ‘the  dog  whined  incessantly’  during  the 
disturbances,  and  ‘the  dog  was  evidently  still  afraid 
of  the  room  when  the  morning  came.  I  called  to  him 
to  go  into  it  with  me,  and  he  crouched  down,  with  his 
tail  between  his  legs,  and  seemed  to  fear  entering  it.’1 

“On  the  occasion  of  a  ‘wailing  cry,’  heard  before  a 
death  in  a  rectory  in  Staffordshire,  a  house  standing 
quite  alone  in  open  country,  ‘we  found  a  favorite  bull¬ 
dog,  a  very  courageous  animal,  trembling  with  terror, 
with  his  nose  thrust  into  some  billets  of  firewood  which 
were  kept  under  the  stairs.’  On  another  occasion,  ‘an 
awful  howling,  followed  by  shriek  upon  shriek,’  with 
a  sound  like  that  caused  by  a  strong  wind,  was  heard, 
altho  everything  out  of  doors  was  quite  still,  and  it  is 
stated,  ‘We  had  three  dogs  sleeping  in  my  sisters’  and 
my  bedrooms,  and  they  were  all  cowering  down  with 
affright,  their  bristles  standing  straight  up;  one — a 
bulldog — was  under  the  bed,  and  refused  to  come  out, 
and  when  removed  was  found  to  be  trembling  all  over.’ 
The  remark  of  Mrs.  Sidgwick  on  these  and  other  cases 
of  warning  sounds  is,  that  ‘if  not  real,  natural  sounds, 
they  must  have  been  collective  hallucinations.’  But  it 
has  not  been  shown  that  ‘real,  natural  sounds’  ever  pro¬ 
duce  such  effects  upon  dogs,  and  there  is  no  suggestion 
that  ‘collective  hallucination’  can  be  telepathically  trans¬ 
ferred  to  these  animals.  In  one  case,  however,  it  is 
suggested  that  the  dog  might  have  ‘been  suddenly  taken 
ill.’  ( !)2 

“In  the  remarkable  account  by  General  Barter,  C.B., 
of  a  phantasmal  pony  and  rider,  with  two  native 


1S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  Vol.  VIII.,  p.  116. 
‘‘Ibid.,  Vol.  XIII.,  pp.  307-08. 


210 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


grooms,  seen  in  India,  two  dogs,  which  immediately 
before  were  hunting  about  in  the  brushwood  jungle 
which  covered  the  hill,  came  and  crouched  by  the  gen¬ 
eral’s  side,  giving  low,  frightened  whimpers ;  and  when 
he  pursued  the  phantasm  the  dogs  returned  home,  tho 
on  all  other  occasions  they  were  his  most  faithful  com¬ 
panions.  ...  1 

“During  the  disturbances  at  the  Cemetery  of  Ahrens- 
burg,  in  the  island  of  Oesel,  where  coffins  were  over¬ 
turned  in  locked  vaults,  and  the  case  was  investigated 
by  an  official  commission,  the  horses  of  country  peo¬ 
ple  visiting  the  cemetery  were  often  so  alarmed  and 
excited  that  they  became  covered  with  sweat  and  foam. 
Sometimes  they  threw  themselves  on  the  ground,  where 
they  struggled  in  apparent  agony,  and  notwithstanding 
the  immediate  resort  to  remedial  measures,  several  died 
within  a  day  or  two.  In  this  case,  as  in  many  others, 
altho  the  commission  made  a  most  rigid  investigation, 
and  applied  the  strictest  tests,  no  natural  cause  for  the 
disturbances  was  ever  discovered.”2 

“In  the  wonderful  case  of  haunting  in  Pennsylvania, 
given  by  Mr.  Hodgson  in  The  Arena 3  .  .  .  when  the 
apparition  of  the  white  lady  appeared  to  the  inform¬ 
ant’s  brother,  we  find  it  stated:  ‘The  third  night  he 
saw  the  dog  crouch  and  stare,  and  then  act  as  if  driven 
around  the  room.  Brother  saw  nothing,  but  heard  a 
sort  of  rustle,  and  the  poor  dog  howled  and  tried  to 
hide,  and  never  again  would  the  dog  go  to  that  room.’  ” 

Now,  these  instances,  by  no  means  rare,  are,  as 
Alfred  Russell  Wallace  himself  said  .  .  .  “certainly  re- 

1S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  Vol.  XIV.,  pp.  469-70. 

aR.  D.  Owen:  Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of  Another  World, 
pp.  186-92.  3 Arena  for  September,  1890,  p.  419. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


211 


markable,  and  worthy  of  deep  consideration.  The  facts 
are  such,  as  on  the  theories  of  telepathy  and  hallucina¬ 
tion  ought  not  to  happen,  and  they  are  especially  trust¬ 
worthy  facts,  because  they  are,  almost  invariably,  intro¬ 
duced  into  the  narrative  as  if  unexpected ;  while  that 
they  were  noticed,  shows  that  the  observers  were  in 
no  degree  panic-struck  with  terror.  They  show  unmis¬ 
takably  that  large  numbers  of  phantasms  .  .  .  are  ob¬ 
jective  realities ;  while  the  terror  displayed  by  the  ani¬ 
mals  that  perceive  them,  and  their  behavior,  so  unlike 
that  in  the  presence  of  natural  sights  and  sounds,  no 
less  clearly  proves  that,  tho  objective,  the  phenomena 
are  not  normal,  and  are  not  to  be  explained  as  in  any 
way  due  to  trick  or  to  misinterpreted  natural  sounds.”1 

Whether  ghosts  exist  at  all  or  not,  it  is  now  for  the 
reader  to  judge.  Whether  they  may  always  exist  with¬ 
out  implying  necessarily  a  future  life  for  the  person 
whom  they  appear  to  represent,  this  also  he  must  de¬ 
cide.  He  may  now  either  answer  for  himself  the  ques¬ 
tion  :  Do  ghosts  help  to  prove  the  existence  of  a  future 
life?  Or,  like  Dr.  Hyslop,  in  a  caution  uttered  a  few 
years  ago,  he  may  for  a  while  defer  judgment.  .  .  . 

“Nor  would  I  encourage  confidence,”  says  the  latter, 
“in  the  spiritistic  explanation  of  phantasms  of  the 
dead,  until  we  have  gathered  much  more  material,  and 
perhaps  material  with  better  evidence  of  its  supernor¬ 
mal  character.  Apparitions  are  not  likely  to  be  suffi¬ 
cient  proof  of  survival  after  death  for  the  scientific 
man  until  better  records  are  made  of  the  facts.  .  .  .”2 

Apparitions,  however,  by  no  means  give  the  final  an¬ 
swer  to  the  question — are  the  dead  alive  ?  Ghosts  may, 

’Wallace:  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  pp.  243-4. 

sHyslop :  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  p.  271. 


212 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


or  may  not,  exist — and  not  decisively  effect  the  solution 
of  the  main  problem. 

“Materializations  ” 

No  phenomena  in  spiritualism  would  be  more  as¬ 
tounding  and  inexplicable,  if  genuine,  than  those  of 
“materialization.”  Yet  that  is  the  next  logical  step 
in  the  ascending  scale  which  we  have  been  following. 
If  objective  apparitions  of  the  dead  may  appear  per¬ 
ceptible  to  the  senses  of  sight  and  hearing,  why  not 
veritable  “materializations,”  perceptible  to  all  the 
senses,  including  that  of  touch?  If  we  have  come  so 
far,  we  must,  logically,  at  least  listen  to  the  evidence 
for  this  even  more  remarkable  phenomenon,  or  else 
retrace  our  steps  and  at  some  past  crossing  of  the  ways 
take  another  path. 

“Needless  to  say,  if  this  fact  of  materialization  and 
dematerialization  he  a  fact,  it  is  one  of  the  most  ex¬ 
traordinary,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  important,  that 
science  has  ever  discovered,  and  one  of  the  most  diffi¬ 
cult  of  solution  that  the  man  of  science  will  ever  be 
called  upon  to  explain  or  solve.”1  I  do  not  recall  at  this 
moment — except  a  hint  given  by  Mr.  Myers — any  sug¬ 
gested  explanation ;  and  indeed  the  cases  which  lay 
strong  claim  to  authenticity  are  so  rare  as  to  render 
our  data  extremely  deficient. 

Of  fraudulent  “materialization”  there  is,  of  course, 
an  endless  amount,  fraud  so  puerile  and  transparent 
that  one  wonders  how  any  sane  man  or  woman  could 
be  for  a  moment  deceived.  Wire  busts,  inflated  rub¬ 
ber,  cork  soles,  gauze  dresses,  phosphorescent  clothing, 
false  hair,  jointed  dummies  and  sticks — these  are  a  few 


'Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  230. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


213 


of  the  many  “properties”  of  the  professional  “material¬ 
izing  medium.”  The  amazing  thing  is  that  with  such 
simple  apparatus  he  can  do  so  much,  even  with  the 
aid  of  a  superabundant  nerve,  the  darkness  of  the 
seance-room,  and  the  half-hysterical  credulity  of  his 
patrons.  It  goes  without  saying,  therefore,  that  the 
usual  “materialization,”  in  the  dark,  under  circum¬ 
stances  prohibitive  of  anything  like  adequate  observa¬ 
tion,  should  not,  and  does  not,  receive  the  slightest 
consideration  from  the  scientist. 

In  our  resume  of  the  more  important  phenomena 
observed  with  the  medium,  Eusapia  Paladino,  we  re¬ 
counted  a  large  number  of  instances  of  partial  mate¬ 
rialization,  instances  which  in  their  number  and  vari¬ 
ety,  the  careful  stringency  of  the  tests  imposed  and  the 
high  standing  of  the  observers  reporting,  form  quite 
our  most  important  and  convincing  body  of  evidence 
in  support  of  the  phenomena. 

But  there  are  not  a  few  other  instances  in  the  history 
of  spiritualism  that  cannot  be  dismissed  so  easily. 
Some  of  the  more  striking  observed  by  Sir  W.  Crookes 
have  already  been  quoted.1  Occult  Science  in  India 
contains  a  number  of  very  remarkable  examples.  A 
few  years  ago,  Professor  Richet  detailed  at  some  length 
in  the  Annals  of  Psychic  Science  a  very  striking  exam¬ 
ple  of  materialization  occurring  under  careful  test  con¬ 
ditions.  Dr.  Stanhope  Templeman  Speer  relates  a 
case2  in  which  the  Rev.  W.  Stainton  Moses  was  the 
medium,  in  which  a  very  life-like  hand  materialized 
out  of  the  center  of  a  floating  globe  of  light. 


‘See  his  Notes. 

SS.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  9,  pp.  245-53. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


214 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  Fox  sisters,  of  their 
confession  of  fraud,  and  of  their  later  retraction  of 
this  confession.  Lest  the  reader  gain  an  erroneous  idea 
of  the  importance  of  the  phenomena  observed  with 
them,  it  should  be  stated  that  in  the  mature  life  of  the 
sisters  these  were  not  confined  to  rappings,  but  were 
often  very  remarkable  materializations,  seemingly  in¬ 
explicable  by  any  hypothesis  of  fraud. 

“Miss  Fox’s  powers  were  most  remarkably  shown 
in  the  seances  at  Mr.  Livermore’s,  a  well-known  New 
York  banker,  and  an  entire  sceptic  before  commencing 
these  experiments.  These  sittings  were  more  than  three 
hundred  in  number,  extending  over  five  years  ...  in 
four  different  houses  .  .  .  and  under  tests  of  the  most 
rigid  description.  The  chief  phenomenon  was  the  ap¬ 
pearance  of  a  tangible,  visible,  and  audible  figure  of 
Mr.  Livermore’s  deceased  wife  .  .  .  often  most  dis¬ 
tinct,  and  absolutely  life-like.  It  moved  various  objects 
about  the  room.  It  wrote  messages  on  cards.  It  was 
sometimes  formed  out  of  a  luminous  cloud,  and  again 
vanished  before  the  eyes  of  the  witnesses.  It  allowed 
a  portion  of  its  dress  to  be  cut  off,  which,  tho  at  first 
of  strong  and  apparently  material  gauzy  texture,  yet 
in  a  short  time  melted  away  and  became  invisible. 
Flowers  which  melted  away  were  also  given.  .  .  .”x 

Speaking  of  “materialized”  dresses,  I  might  speak 
of  an  incident  in  the  “Katie  King”  seances,  described 
more  fully  a  little  later.  On  the  evening  on  which 
Katie  King  terminated  her  three  years’  materialized 
“life”  on  earth,  she  took  leave  of  her  medium,  Miss 
Cook,  and  wrote  “letters  to  some  of  her  friends,  signing 
them  ‘Annie  Owen  Morgan,’  saying  that  was  her  true 


'Wallace:  'Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  pp.  163-4. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


215 


name  during  her  life  on  earth.  She  also  wrote  a  letter 
.  .  .  her  medium,  and  chose  for  her  a  rosebud  as  a 
good-by  gift.  Katie  then  took  the  scissors,  cut  off  a 
lock  of  her  hair,  and  gave  some  of  it  to  all  of  us.  She 
then  took  Mr.  Crookes’  hand  and  made  the  tour  of 
the  room,  pressing  the  hand  of  each  of  us  in  turn.  She 
then  sat  down  again,  and  cut  off  several  pieces  of  her 
robe  and  of  her  veil,  for  remembrances.  Seeing  such 
holes  in  her  robe  (she  being  seated  all  this  while  be¬ 
tween  Mr.  Crookes  and  Mr.  Tapp),  some  one  asked 
her  if  she  could  repair  the  damage,  as  she  had  done  on 
previous  occasions.  She  then  held  the  cut  part  of  the 
robe  in  the  light,  gave  one  rap  upon  it,  and  instantly 
that  part  was  whole  and  unblemished  as  before.  Those 
near  her  touched  and  examined  the  stuff,  with  her  per¬ 
mission.  They  affirmed  that  there  was  neither  hole 
nor  seam,  nor  anything  added  at  the  very  place  where, 
an  instant  before,  they  had  seen  holes  Several  inches 
in  diameter.”1 

The  strongest  evidence,  however,  that  we  have  is 
that  of  the  cases  observed  by  Sir  W.  Crookes  with  the 
medium,  D.  D.  Home.  Some  of  these  were  quoted 
in  the  opening  article  of  the  series ;  but  others  deserve 
further  consideration  here. 

As  an  introduction  to  the  materialization  proper,  Sir 
W.  Crookes  speaks  of  “luminous  appearances”  mani¬ 
festing  themselves  “under  strictly  test  conditions.” 
“These,  being  rather  faint,  generally  require  the  room 
to  be  darkened.  I  need  scarcely  remind  my  readers 
again  that,  under  these  circumstances,  I  have  taken 
proper  precautions  to  avoid  being  imposed  upon  by 


'The  Spiritualist  for  May  27,  1874. 


216 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


phosphorized  oil  or  other  means.  Moreover,  many 
of  these  lights  are  such  as  I  have  tried  to  imitate  arti¬ 
ficially,  but  cannot.”1 

“Under  the  strictest  test  conditions,  I  have  seen  a 
solid,  self-luminous  body,  the  size,  and  nearly  the  shape, 
of  a  turkey’s  egg,  float  noiselessly  about  the  room,  at 
one  time  higher  than  any  one  present  could  reach, 
standing  on  tiptoe,  and  then  gently  descend  to  the 
floor.  It  was  visible  for  more  than  ten  minutes,  and 
before  it  faded  away  it  struck  the  table  three  times, 
with  a  sound  like  that  of  a  hard,  solid  body.  During 
this  time  the  medium  was  lying  back,  apparently  in¬ 
sensible,  in  an  easy-chair.  .  .  .  Under  the  strictest  test 
conditions,  I  have,  more  than  once,  had  a  solid,  self- 
luminous,  crystalline  body  placed  in  my  hand  by  a 
hand  which  did  not  belong  to  any  person  in  the  room.”2 

Of  the  “appearance  of  hands”  we  have  already  noted 
several  instances.  Here  are  others  noted  in  the  same 
report:  “On  another  occasion  a  small  hand  and  arm, 
like  a  baby’s,  appeared,  playing  about  a  lady  who  was 
sitting  next  to  me.  It  then  passed  to  me,  and  patted 
my  arm  and  pulled  my  coat  several  times.”3 

“A  hand  has  repeatedly  been  seen  by  myself  and 
others,  playing  the  keys  of  an  accordion,  both  of  the 
medium’s  hands  being  visible  at  the  same  time,  and 
sometimes  being  held  by  those  near  him.” 

“The  hands  and  fingers  do  not  always  appear  to  me 
to  be  solid  and  life-like.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they  pre¬ 
sent  more  the  appearance  of  a  nebulous  cloud,  partly 
condensed  into  the  form  of  a  hand.”  It  may  be  noted 


’Crookes:  Notes.  Quar.  Jour,  of  Sci.,  Jan.,  1874,  p.  87. 
‘Ibid.  *Ibid.,  p.  88. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


217 


that  this  accordion  was  in  a  wire  cage,  the  wires  being 
charged  electrically  and  connected  with  a  galvanome¬ 
ter  as  an  additional  safeguard. 

On  still  another  occasion  “a  luminous  hand  came 
down  from  the  upper  part  of  the  room,  and  after  hov¬ 
ering  near  me  for  a  few  seconds,  took  the  pencil  from 
my  hand,  rapidly  wrote  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  threw 
the  pencil  down,  and  then  rose  up  over  our  heads, 
gradually  fading  into  darkness.”1 

The  materialization  of  something  more  than  hands, 
that  is,  of  “phantom  forms  and  faces,”  Sir  W.  Crookes 
says,  “are  the  rarest  of  the  phenomena  I  have  witnessed. 
The  conditions  requisite  for  their  appearance  appear 
to  be  so  delicate,  and  such  trifles  interfere  with  their 
production,  that  only  on  very  few  occasions  have  I  wit¬ 
nessed  them  under  satisfactory  test  conditions.  .  .  .” 

In  this  connection  he  cites  but  two  cases,  of  which  I 
will  quote  only  the  second. 

“As  in  the  former  case,  Mr.  Home  was  the  medium. 
A  phantom  form  came  from  a  corner  of  the  room,  took 
an  accordion  in  its  hand,  and  then  glided  about  the 
room  playing  the  instrument.  The  form  was  visible  to 
all  present  for  many  minutes,  Mr.  Home  also  being 
seen  at  the  same  time.  Coming  rather  close  to  a  lady 
who  was  sitting  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  company, 
she  gave  a  slight  cry,  upon  which  it  vanished.”2 

The  Famous  “Katie  King”  Materialization 

The  record  of  the  final  and  most  striking  case  of  all 
that  Sir  W.  Crookes  observed,  namely,  that  of  the  ma- 

’Crookes:  Notes.  Quae.  Jour,  of  Sci.,  Jan.,  1874,  p.  89. 

'‘Ibid.,  p.  190. 


218 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


terialized  spirit  of  “Katie  King,”  already  mentioned,  is 
too  long  to  quote  in  its  entirety  here.  Those  interested 
will  find  it  reprinted  at  length  in  Dr.  Funk’s  Widow’s 
Mite. 

Very  briefly,  what  Sir  W.  Crookes  would  have  us 
believe  is  this:  that  a  Miss  Cook,  a  medium,  material¬ 
ized  at  will  for  several  years  a  spirit  from  the  other 
world,  called  “Katie,”  unknown  to  him  or  any  one  else 
who  saw  and  conversed  with  her;  that  “Katie”  acted 
as  would  any  human  being  in  the  flesh ;  was  a  beautiful 
young  woman,  with  a  most  charming  personality,  but 
who  came  and  vanished  at  intervals,  and  finally  for¬ 
ever,  spontaneously.  However  much  we  may  dislike 
to  accept  such  a  wholesale  “violation ( ?)  of  the  laws 
of  nature,”  the  advocate  of  the  hypothesis  of  fraud  in 
this  case  must  take  into  account  these  facts : 

1.  “Katie”  was  seen  by  and  conversed  with  a  large 
number  of  people,  including  the  children  of  the  Crookes 
family,  and  this  not  once  or  twice,  but  over  a  period 
of  nearly  three  years. 

2.  To  prevent  trickery,  the  more  significant  seances 
were  held  in  Sir  W.’s  own  library,  the  materializations 
taking  place  in  a  “cabinet”  which  he  had  improvised 
himself. 

3.  Miss  Cook,  the  medium,  was  a  schoolgirl  of  fif¬ 
teen.  “To  imagine,”  says  Sir  W.,  that  she  “should 
be  able  to  conceive  and  then  successfully  carry  out  for 
three  years  so  gigantic  an  imposture  as  this,  and  in 
that  time  should  submit  to  any  test  which  might  be 
imposed  upon  her,  should  bear  the  strictest  scrutiny, 
should  be  willing  to  be  searched  at  any  time,  either 
before  or  after  a  seance,  and  should  meet  with  even 
better  success  in  my  own  house  than  at  that  of  her 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


219 


parents,  knowing  that  she  visited  me  with  the  express 
object  of  submitting  to  strict  scientific  tests — to  im¬ 
agine,  I  say,  the  Katie  King  of  the  last  three  years  to 
be  the  result  of  imposture  does  more  violence  to  one’s 
reason  and  common  sense  than  to  believe  her  to  be  what 
she  herself  affirms.” 

4.  “Katie”  was  really  “material,”  spoke  and  walked ; 
her  heart  heat ;  her  lungs  “were  found  to  be  sounder 
than  her  medium’s” ;  she  suffered  Sir  W.  to  embrace 
her,  as  proof  of  her  materiality ;  she  allowed  her  pic¬ 
ture  to  be  taken ;  she  was  a  favorite  with,  and  told 
stories  to  and  played  with  the  Crookes  children ;  and 
yet,  added  to  her  “humanness”  (however  much  we  may 
say  that  this  latter  was  mere  imagination),  she  ap¬ 
peared  to  all  observers  to  have  a  beauty  and  charm  that 
was  hardly  earthly ;  and  she  frequently ,  in  a  second  or 
two,  vanished  into  thin  air. 

5.  “Katie” — and  this  is  the  favorite  “explanation” — 
was  not  the  medium  herself,  disguised.  If  it  be  not 
sufficient  proof  that  their  hair  was  not  the  same  in 
color,  that  “Katie”  was  six  inches  taller  than  Miss 
Cook,  that  Miss  Cook’s  skin  bore  marks  that  Katie’s 
lacked,  this  fact  must  seem  conclusive:  that  the  two 
were  seen  and  felt  side  by  side,  at  one  and  the  same 
time,  Miss  Cook  in  the  deep  trance  that  accompanied 
Katie’s  materialization,  Katie  standing  by  Sir  W.  .  .  . 
“Three  separate  times,”  says  he,  “did  I  carefully  ex¬ 
amine  Miss  Cook,  crouching  before  me,  to  be  sure 
that  the  hand  I  held  was  that  of  a  living  woman,  and 
three  separate  times  did  I  turn  the  lamp  to  Katie,  and 
examine  her  with  steadfast  scrutiny,  until  I  had  no 
doubt  whatever  of  her  objective  reality.  At  last  Miss 
Cook  moved  slightly,  and  Katie  instantly  motioned  me 


220 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


to  go  away.  I  went  to  another  part  of  the  cabinet, 
and  then  ceased  to  see  Katie,  but  did  not  leave  the 
room  till  Miss  Cook  woke  up  and  two  of  the  visitors 
came  in  with  a  light.” 

6.  No  person  resembling  Katie  was  ever  seen  any¬ 
where  else  but  in  the  seance-room,  and  during  such 
time  as  Miss  Cook  was  entranced. 

This  remarkable  case  is  well  worthy  of  careful  read¬ 
ing.  Strongly  substantiated  as  it  appears  to  be,  and  oc¬ 
curring  under  such  seemingly  good  test  conditions,  it  is, 
nevertheless,  alone  insufficient  to  warrant  our  belief  in 
such  revolutionary  phenomena.  Yet,  remembering  the 
rank  of  Sir  William  Crookes  as  a  scientist,  and  the 
wealth  of  evidence  attesting  to  the  mysterious  Katie, 
we  may  well  consider  it,  if  not  a  link  in  the  chain  of 
scientific  evidence  for  a  future  life,  at  least  the  rough 
iron  out  of  which  a  strengthening  corroborative  chain 
may  be  some  day  forged. 


“THE  DEAD  HAVE  NEVER  REALLY  DIED” 


During  the  last  sixty  years  evidence  has  been  accumulating 
in  every  part  of  the  world  which  affords  demonstration  that 
the  so-called  dead  have  never  really  died  at  all,  but  have 
passed  into  a  new  and  higher  stage  of  existence.  Many  of 
these  are  able  to  communicate  with  us  and  most  of  them  as¬ 
sure  us  that  when  they  wake  from  the  sleep  we  call  death 
they  find  themselves  much  more  alive  than  ever  they  were 
before.  And  this  is  only  what  we  may  expect;  for  we  all  feel 
that  our  mental  faculties  are  to  some  extent  clogged  and  stifled 
by  the  garment  of  flesh,  and  that  only  when  in  the  most  per¬ 
fect  health  do  our  higher  faculties  attain  their  fullest  ex¬ 
pression. 

This  rapid  entrance  on  a  state  of  spiritual  well-being  and 
happiness  seems  to  be  very  general  among  those  who  have 
led  ordinarily  good  and  natural  lives,  but  is  by  no  means  uni¬ 
versal.  Those  who  have  led  selfish  or  sensual  lives,  or  have 
given  way  to  evil  passions  of  any  kind,  have  a  different  awak¬ 
ening,  into  a  world  of  darkness  or  gloom,  often  of  solitude  for 
a  longer  or  shorter  period  and  infinitely  varied  in  the  sur¬ 
roundings  according  to  their  previous  lives.  But  whatever 
germs  of  good  are  in  them  are  ultimately  developed  through 
the  kind  ministrations  of  spirit-helpers,  and  thenceforth 
progress  towards  a  higher  and  happier  state  depends  mainly 
on  themselves. 

We  have  all  kinds  of  phenomena  which  are  inexplicable  even 
to  the  scientific  mind,  except  on  a  spiritualistic  hypothesis. 
We  have  the  alteration  of  the  weight  of  bodies,  which  has 
often  been  tested.  We  have  the  phenomena  of  articles  of  vari¬ 
ous  kinds  being  moved  without  human  agency,  such  as  chairs, 
tables  and  musical  instruments.  More  curious  is  the  convey¬ 
ing  of  bodies  to  a  distance;  flowers  and  fruits  are  the  most 
common  of  these,  but  also  other  bodies,  such  as  letters  and 
various  small  objects,  have  been  conveyed  long  distances — 
sometimes  several  miles. 


221 


m 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Further,  we  have  that  curious  phenomena  which  is  recorded 
more  or  less  throughout  history,  the  raising  or  levitation  of 
human  bodies  into  the  air  and  sometimes  conveying  them  a 
considerable  distance.  More  remarkable  by  far  than  these,  be¬ 
cause  beyond  all  human  power  to  produce,  is  the  tying  of 
knots  on  endless  cords,  the  taking  of  coins  out  of  sealed  boxes, 
and  the  passage  of  solid  rings  over  the  body  far  too  large  for 
them  to  pass  over  by  any  natural  means.  All  these  things 
have  happened  in  the  presence  of  careful  scientists  and  their 
assistants;  I  have  frequently  myself  seen,  in  good  light,  sticks 
and  handkerchiefs  pass  through  a  curtain. 

We  have  chemical  phenomena.  Chief  among  these  is  that 
of  protection  from  the  effects  of  fire.  Mr.  D.  D.  Home,  de¬ 
ceased  now  some  years,  and  perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
medium  that  ever  lived,  used  to  take  from  a  grate  a  brilliant, 
red-hot  mass  of  coals,  carry  them  about  the  room  in  his  hands, 
and  by  his  peculiar  power  indicate  certain  persons  who  were 
able  to  have  them  placed  in  their  hands,  and  placing  them 
there  they  would  experience  no  unpleasant  results. 

In  view  of  the  numerous  men  who  have  investigated  this 
matter  and  given  their  decision,  we  may  entirely  throw  aside 
the  idea  that  imposture,  only  in  slight  measure,  has  produced 
these  phenomena. 

********* 

Scientific  men  almost  invariably  assume  that  in  this  inquiry 
they  should  be  permitted  at  the  very  outset  to  impose  condi¬ 
tions,  and  if  under  such  conditions  nothing  happens,  they  con¬ 
sider  it  a  proof  of  imposture  or  delusion.  But  they  well  know 
that  in  other  branches  of  research,  nature,  not  they,  determines 
the  essential  conditions  without  a  compliance  with  which  no 
experiment  will  succeed. 

The  underlying  laws  of  the  testimony  of  evidence  are  sim¬ 
ple.  If  a  man  of  good  judgment,  in  full  possession  of  his 
senses  and  a  reputation  for  honesty,  tells  us  of  a  certain  fact 
which  he  witnessed,  we  are  inclined,  in  the  absence  of  con¬ 
tradictory  evidence,  to  believe  the  fact  that  he  states.  If  ten 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ARIVE? 


223 


men,  similarly  endowed,  say  they  witnessed  the  same  thing, 
we  feel  reasonably  certain;  whereas  the  concurrent  independ¬ 
ent  testimony  of  a  thousand  sincere,  capable  men  may  be  said 
to  make  assertion  a  certainty. 

As  I  have  already  said,  in  my  introduction  to  “Miracles  and 
Modern  Spiritualism,”  outside  of  modern  spiritualism  I  know 
nothing  in  recognized  science  to  support  the  belief  in  immor¬ 
tality.  Up  to  the  time  when  I  first  became  acquainted  with 
the  facts  of  spiritualism  I  was  a  confirmed  philosophical  skep¬ 
tic.  My  curiosity  was  at  first  excited  by  some  slight  but  in¬ 
explicable  phenomena  occurring  in  a  friend’s  family,  and  my 
desire  for  knowledge  and  love  of  truth  forced  me  to  continue 
the  inquiry.  The  facts  compelled  me  to  accept  them  as  such 
long  before  I  could  accept  the  spiritual  explanation  of  them; 
there  was  at  that  time  no  place  in  my  fabric  of  thought  into 
which  it  could  be  fitted.  By  slow  degrees  a  place  was  made; 
but  it  was  made,  not  by  any  preconceived  or  theoretical  opin¬ 
ions,  but  by  the  continuous  action  of  fact  after  fact  which 
could  not  be  got  rid  of  in  any  other  way  than  by  accepting 
the  explanation  of  them  which  spiritualism  presents. 

— Alfred  Russell  Wallace. 


CHAPTER  X 


TELEPATHY 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  discussion  of  telepathy 
I  am  going  to  make  a  bold,  and  what  may  seem  an 
unwarranted,  statement — Telepathy  is  now  an  estab¬ 
lished  scientific  fact.  It  is  quite  true  that  concerning 
the  laws  that  govern  it,  we  know  little,  but  it  is  equally 
true  that  we  have,  literally,  thousands  of  well-authen¬ 
ticated  instances  attesting  the  truth  of  its  existence. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  the  noted  scientist,  says:  “What 
we  [the  Society  for  Psychical  Research]  can  challenge 
the  judgment  of  the  world  upon  is  telepathy.  Here 
is  the  beginning  of  a  wider  conception  of  science. 
Directly  men  see  and  admit,  as  they  must  do  from 
the  overwhelming  evidence,  that  it  is  possible  to  trans¬ 
mit  ideas  direct  from  brain  to  brain  without  the  inter¬ 
mediaries  of  speech  and  hearing,  they  are  looking  into 
and  gaining  admission  to  new  fields  of  exploration.”1 
And  Dr.  Hyslop,  the  cautious,  here  none  the  less  posi¬ 
tively  asserts :  “In  some  way,  the  thoughts  of  one  per¬ 
son  make  themselves  known  to  the  mind  of  another. 
The  fact  is  very  rare,  and  is  much  more  rare  than 
the  general  public  supposes.  But  it  occurs  often  enough 
for  us  to  suppose  that  extra-organic  stimuli,  of  the 


1Pall  Mall  Magazine,  January,  1904. 

324 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


225 


nature  of  mental  states,  can  produce  effects  on  the 
minds  of  others.”1 

Dr.  Minot  J.  Savage  finds  an  analogy  in  the  purely 
physical  world.  “We  know  that  when  two  musical 
instruments  are  placed  at  a  certain  distance  apart,” 
he  says,  “and  keyed  so  as  precisely  to  correspond  with 
each  other,  one  will  sometimes  respond  when  the  other 
is  touched.  It  is  possible  that  there  may  be  such  a 
thing  as  minds  of  brain  molecules  keyed  to  each  other 
so  that,  when  some  great  sorrow,  or  anticipated  evil, 
or  stress,  touches  one  of  them,  there  is  response  in  the 
other,  no  matter  how  great  the  distance  that  may  sepa¬ 
rate  them.”2 

Frederic  Myers,  speaking  of  “ecstasy,”  meaning  by 
that  the  ability  of  the  spirit,  under  certain  conditions, 
to  leave  the  body  and  transcend  time  and  space,  says : 
“It  is  hardly  a  paradox  to  say  that  the  evidence  for 
ecstasy  is  stronger  than  the  evidence  for  any  other 
religious  belief.  .  .  .  [One  reason  being  that  it  is  a] 
fact  that  it  is  common  to  all  religions.  I  doubt  whether 
there  is  any  phenomenon,  except  ecstasy,  of  which  this 
can  be  said.  From  the  medicine-man  of  the  lowest  sav¬ 
ages  up  to  St.  John,  St.  Peter,  St.  Paul,  with  Buddha, 
Mahomet  and  Swedenborg  on  the  way,  we  find  records 
which,  though  morally  and  intellectually  much  differ¬ 
ing,  are,  in  psychological  essence,  the  same.”3 

The  reason  why  the  great  body  of  scientific  men 
refuse  to  accept  telepathy  is  that  it  is  the  first  step 
into  a  land  whose  existence  science  has  hitherto  denied ; 


'Hyslop :  Borderland  of  Psychical  Research,  p.  190. 
“Savage :  Life  Beyond  Death,  p.  266. 

“Myers:  Human  Personality,  p.  338. 


226 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


and  it  is  the  first  step  that  counts.  If  telepathy  were 
the  whole  story!  But,  as  Myers  says,1  “If  we  have 
once  got  a  man’s  thought  operating  apart  from  his 
body — if  my  fixation  of  attention  on  the  two  of  dia¬ 
monds  does  somehow  so  modify  another  man’s  brain 
a  few  yards  off  that  he  seems  to  see  the  two  of  dia¬ 
monds  floating  before  him — there  is  no  obvious  halting 
place  on  his  side  till  we  come  to  ‘possession’  by  a  de¬ 
parted  spirit,  and  there  is  no  obvious  halting  place  on 
my  side  till  we  come  to  ‘traveling  clairvoyance,’  with 
a  corresponding  visibility  of  my  own  phantasm  to  other 
persons  in  the  scenes  which  I  spiritually  visit.” 

The  evidence  proving  telepathy  is  strong,  clear,  al¬ 
most  conclusive ;  but  your  scientist  dares  not  admit 
it  because  of  the  further  admissions  to  which  he  will 
then  be  bound.  Before  the  scientist  “ever  looms  the 
bogy  of  spiritism” ;  and  as  a  consequence,  telepathy  is 
denied,  or  explained  away  without  investigation.  In 
the  early  days  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
special  emphasis  was  laid  upon  the  active  investigation 
of  telepathy,  and  with  such  success  that  in  two  years 
the  Society  was  able  to  claim  “to  have  proved  the  reality 
of  thought  transference.”  But  the  way  of  the  Society, 
because  of  the  astounding  nature  of  the  conclusions 
which  it  so  soon  reached,  was  not  an  easy  one.  It  was 
hampered  by  the  very  richness  of  the  hitherto  un¬ 
touched  field  which  it  was  opening  up. 

In  the  introduction  to  his  Human  Personality  and  Its 
Survival  of  Bodily  Death,  Myers  says  of  this  forma¬ 
tive  period  in  the  Society’s  history:  “Our  methods, 
our  canons,  were  all  to  make.  In  those  early  days  we 


'Myers :  Human  Personality,  p.  191. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


227 


were  more  devoid  of  precedents,  of  guidance,  even  of 
criticism  that  went  beyond  mere  expression  of  con¬ 
tempt,  than  is  now  readily  conceived.”1 

But,  as  we  have  already  seen,  within  a  few  short 
years  the  Society  felt  itself  able  to  establish  “the  thesis 
that  a  communication  can  take  place  from  mind  to 
mind  by  some  agency  not  that  of  the  recognized  organs 
of  sense.  We  found  that  this  agency,  discernible  even 
on  trivial  occasions  by  suitable  experiment,  seemed  to 
connect  itself  with  an  agency  more  intense,  or  at  any 
rate  more  recognizable,  which  operated  at  moments  of 
crisis  or  at  the  hour  of  death.”2 

It  must  not  be  inferred  that  that  Society  stands  alone 
in  the  conclusions  which,  after  extended  experimenta¬ 
tion,  it  has  reached.  Dr.  Hudson  arrived  at  an  iden¬ 
tical  result  independently ;  M.  Flammarion  and  M. 
Richet,  among  others,  have  formed  concurrent  conclu¬ 
sions. 

Fraudulent  Telepathic  Phenomena 

With  telepathy,  as  with  every  other  phenomena  of 
spiritualism,  there  is,  besides  the  minute  portion  that 
has  been  accepted  by  the  psychic  researcher  as  genuine, 
a  luxuriant  parasitic  growth  of  fraud  and  trickery. 
“Mind-reading”  is  in  the  repertoire  of  every  prestidigi¬ 
tator;  and  each  professional,  if  he  be  of  any  note,  has 
evolved  a  new  method  cleverer  in  some  respect  than 
those  of  his  fellow  craftsmen.  It  will  be  worth  while 
for  us  to  examine  one  or  two  instances  of  this  fake 
telepathy,  if  only  to  ascertain  wherein  it  differs  from 
the  genuine. 

'Myers:  Human  Personality,  v.  i,  p.  7. 

‘Ibid,  v.  1,  p.  8. 


228 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Code  question  and  answer  from  the  assistant  in  the 
audience  to  the  “professor”  on  the  stage,  is  an  old 
device,  probably  familiar  to  the  reader.  This  method 
is  too  bungling,  however,  for  the  modern  “business” 
of  magic,  and  other  ways  are  devised  by  which  the 
usher  assistant  conveys  secretly  the  desired  informa¬ 
tion  to  the  blindfolded  reader. 

“The  performer  passes  among  the  audience,  and  is 
shown  numbers  on  bills,  dates  on  coins,  etc.,  which 
the  assistant  on  the  stage  immediately  names  correctly. 

“The  secret  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  performer  has, 
passed  up  his  legs,  and  inside  the  trousers,  copper 
wires,  the  ends  of  which  connect  with  metal  plates  on 
the  soles  of  his  shoes,  and  so  arranged  that  the  circuit 
may  be  completed  by  pressing  together  two  wires, 
separated  by  a  spring,  which  is  directly  under  the  per¬ 
former’s  waistcoat.  He  stands  on  the  metal  rim  of 
the  carpet  which  runs  down  the  aisle,  and  to  the  other 
ends  of  which  are  attached  wires,  leading  either  to 
the  assistant  directly,  or  to  some  third  person,  who 
conveys  the  message  to  the  assistant  upon  the  stage 
by  means  of  signals.  When  the  performer  sees  the 
date  on  the  coin,  the  number  of  the  banknote,  etc.,  all 
he  has  to  do  is  to  touch  the  two  wires  together  a  cer¬ 
tain  number  of  times,  and  the  signal  is  interpreted 
at  the  other  end  of  the  line.  A  code  is  always  employed 
to  shorten  and  quicken  the  process.”1 

There  is  another  large  class  of  “thought-reading” 
experiments  which  involves  the  answering  of  questions 
written  on  a  piece  of  paper  seen  only  by  the  writer. 
Here,  again,  the  methods  of  fraud  are  legion ;  the  cu- 


xCarrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  p.  297. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  229 

rious  will  find  a  large  number  detailed  by  Mr.  Carring¬ 
ton.  I  can  here  but  give  two  samples. 

“The  medium  has  written  and  sent  up  to  him  a  num¬ 
ber  of  questions  on  separate  slips  of  paper,  and  these 
are  all  piled  before  him  on  the  table.  He  picks  up 
one  of  these,  puts  it  to  his  forehead,  and,  after  more 
or  less  hesitation,  tells  its  contents.  It  is  acknowledged 
as  correct  by  some  member  of  the  audience,  and  the 
medium  immediately  opens  the  paper  and  verifies  the 
fact  that  he  has  given  the  message  correctly.  Ihe  next 
pellet  is  picked  up  and  the  contents  read  in  like  man¬ 
ner,  until  all  the  pellets  have  been  read  in  turn.  .  .  . 
The  secret  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  medium  has  a 
confederate  in  the  audience,  the  contents  of  whose 
pellet  he  already  knows.  This  pellet  is  marked,  so  that 
the  medium  can  distinguish  it  from  all  the  others  in 
the  pile.  He  picks  up  any  pellet  in  the  heap  but  his 
confederate’s,  and  holds  it  against  his  forehead.  After 
a  time  he  reads  aloud  the  contents  of  the  confederate’s 
slip,  which  that  person  acknowledges  as  correct.  As 
soon  as  he  has  done  so,  the  medium  opens  the  pellet, 
ostensibly  to  ascertain  if  he  has  read  its  contents  cor¬ 
rectly,  thereby  gaining  a  knowledge  of  the  contents 
of  that  pellet,  which  he  reads  as  the  contents  of  the 
next  one,  and  so  on  thruout  the  entire  pile,  the  medium 
keeping  ‘one  ahead’  all  the  time  and  reading  each 
pellet  in  turn.”1 

Of  course  the  trick  is  nothing  but  a  very  simple 
legerdemain;  but  when  well  performed  it  is  astonish- 


'Carrington:  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  pp. 
279-80. 


230 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


ingly  convincing.  Here  is  another,  however,  which 
is  somewhat  more  ingenious: 

“A  trick-table  has  a  hollow  leg,  which  fits  over  a 
hole  in  the  floor  of  the  room,  and  communicates  with 
the  room  below.  The  top  of  the  table  is  covered  with 
(i)  a  piece  of  thin  silk,  (2)  a  piece  of  carbon-paper, 
the  size  of  the  top  of  the  table,  placed  over  the  silk,  and 
(3)  a  very  thin  oilcloth  covering,  stretched  tightly  over 
the  top  of  the  table.  To  one  corner  of  the  silk  is  at¬ 
tached  a  thread,  and  this  passes  down  to  the  room 
below,  thru  the  hollow  leg  of  the  table. 

“When  the  sitter  is  seated  at  the  table  the  medium 
hands  him  one  sheet  of  paper  and  a  pencil,  with  the 
request  that  he  (the  sitter)  write  a  question  on  the 
paper,  and  immediately  fold  it  up  and  place  it  in  his 
pocket.  Meanwhile  the  medium  leaves  the  room,  ‘so 
that  he  shall  not  see  what  the  sitter  is  writing  upon 
his  piece  of  paper.’  The  sitter  writes  the  question, 
as  directed,  and  after  folding  up  the  paper  places  it 
in  his  pocket.  No  sooner  has  he  done  so,  however, 
than  the  medium  returns  to  the  room,  and  astonishes 
the  sitter  by  informing  him  of  the  contents  of  the  paper 
in  his  pocket. 

“As  may  be  imagined,  the  trick  is  worked  by  means 
of  the  table,  and  in  this  way :  The  sitter,  having  only 
one  sheet  of  paper  in  his  hands,  and  having  no  solid 
substance  against  which  to  press  this,  naturally  places 
the  paper  on  the  table,  and  writes  his  question  in  that 
manner.  The  pressure  of  the  pencil,  pressing  upon  the 
carbon-sheet,  makes  a  copy  of  the  question  on  the  silk 
sheet  underneath  it,  and  the  medium  has  only  to  pull 
it  off  the  table  and  down  into  the  room  below.  Then 
he  is  enabled  to  read  the  question,  and  on  going  back 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


231 


to  the  seance-room  he  can  astonish  his  sitter  by  telling 
him  what  is  on  the  folded-up  paper  in  his  pocket.  This 
is  an  extremely  effective  test.”1 

But  very  early  in  the  history  of  alleged  telepathic 
phenomena  appeared  cases  that  were  very  evidently  not 
the  result  of  mere  trickery.  “A  large  blackboard  was 
placed  upon  an  easel,  on  the  stage,  and  the  performer, 
after  securing  a  number  of  persons  from  the  audience 
to  assist  him  .  .  .  would  have  himself  securely  blind¬ 
folded  by  the  members  of  the  committee,  and  then  step 
up  to  the  blackboard,  chalk  in  hand.  ...  A  banknote 
would  now  be  handed  to  some  other  member  of  the 
committee,  and  he,  grasping  the  hand  of  the  mind- 
reader,  would  concentrate  his  mind  on  the  number  of 
the  note.  The  performer  would  then  proceed  to  trace 
on  the  board,  very  slowly,  the  number  of  this  note, 
which  the  assistant  would  certify  was  correct.  .  .  . 
Each  of  the  above-mentioned  performers  succeeded  in 
opening  a  safe,  the  combination  of  which  they  did  not 
know,  they  merely  holding  the  hand  of  the  person  who 
did  know  the  combination.”2  Here  was  something 
which  the  hypothesis  of  fraud  would  not  cover.  It 
will  be  noted  that  in  each  case,  however,  the  “reader” 
was  in  touch  with  the  person  thinking  the  message,  and 
it  was  not  very  long  before  it  was  discovered  that  the 
explanation  of  the  alleged  “telepathy”  was  “muscle¬ 
reading.”  “The  person  holding  the  performer’s  hand 
gave  him  the  required  information  by  means  of  slight, 
unconscious  movements,  which  the  performer  inter¬ 
preted,  also  more  or  less  unconsciously.”3 


’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  pp.  282-3. 

2Ibid.,  pp.  292-3.  sIbid.,  p.  294. 


232 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


So  expert  did  these  muscle-readers  become,  that  they 
were  able  to  do  really  astonishing  feats.  One  is  record¬ 
ed,  for  instance,  of  driving  a  cab  across  the  city  blind¬ 
folded  and  finding  a  hidden  article. 

But  there  were  other  phenomena  that  even  muscle¬ 
reading  could  not  explain — cases  of  apparent  thought 
transference  when  the  “percipient”  (the  person  receiv¬ 
ing  the  message)  was  at  a  distance,  even  miles,  from 
the  sender.  For  these  cases  the  psychicist  found  him¬ 
self  forced  back  to  the  hypothesis  of  telepathy.  Of 
professional  “exhibitions  of  mind-reading,”  however 
inexplicable  they  may  seem,  Mr.  Carrington  sounds  this 
note  of  warning:  “We  know  nothing,  as  yet,  however, 
of  the  laws  that  govern  .  .  .  telepathy,  and  cannot 
command  the  phenomena  to  appear  at  our  beck  and 
call,  or  summon  them  at  will ;  and  consequently,  any 
one  who  does  so  at  once  stamps  himself  as  an  impostor. 
.  .  .  The  only  thing  we  know  about  telepathy  is  that — 
we  know  nothing  about  it!  When,  therefore,  public 
performers  give  nightly  exhibitions  of  ‘thought-read¬ 
ing,’  ‘clairvoyance,’  and  so  on,  it  may  be  taken  for 
granted  that  these  exhibitions  are  nothing  more  than 
clever  conjuring  performances.”1 

Spontaneous  Telepathy 

I  shall  first  cite  an  early  instance  of  spontaneous 
telepathy,  selecting  one  which  is  most  typical,  re¬ 
gardless  in  this  case  of  the  rigidity  of  the  tests  sur¬ 
rounding  it.  I  do  this,  not  to  give  proof  of  telepathy, 
but  to  show  the  kind  of  material  existent  which  the 


’Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  pp.  291-3. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


233 


Society  used  as  a  starting  point  for  its  own  investiga¬ 
tions.  It  is  a  letter  to  the  English  Spectator ,  signed 
by  the  author,  Mrs.  Caroline  Barber : 

“I  had  one  day  been  spending  the  morning  in  shop¬ 
ping,  and  returned  by  train  just  in  time  to  sit  down 
with  my  children  to  our  early  family  dinner.  My 
youngest  child — a  sensitive,  quick-witted  little  maiden 
of  two  years  and  six  weeks  old — was  one  of  the  circle. 
Dinner  had  just  commenced,  when  I  suddenly  recol¬ 
lected  an  incident  in  my  morning’s  experience  which 
I  had  intended  to  tell  her,  and  I  looked  at  the  child 
with  the  full  intention  of  saying,  ‘Mother  saw  a  big 
black  dog  in  a  shop,  with  curly  hair,’  catching  her  eyes 
with  mine  as  I  paused  an  instant  before  speaking.  Just 
then  something  called  off  my  attention,  and  the  sen¬ 
tence  was  not  uttered.  What  was  my  amazement, 
about  two  minutes  afterward,  to  hear  my  little  lady  an¬ 
nounce,  ‘Mother  saw  a  big  dog  in  a  shop.’  I  gasped, 
‘Yes,  I  did!’  I  answered,  ‘but  how  did  you  know?’ 
‘With  funny  hair,’  she  added  quite  calmly,  and  ignoring 
my  question.  ‘What  color  was  it,  Evelyn?’  said  one 
of  her  elder  brothers.  ‘Was  it  black?’  She  said  ‘Yes.’ 

“Now,  it  was  simply  impossible  that  she  should  have 
received  any  hint  of  the  incident  verbally.  I  had  had 
no  friend  with  me  when  I  had  seen  the  dog.  All  the 
children  had  been  at  home,  in  our  house  in  the  coun¬ 
try,  four  miles  from  town;  I  had  returned,  as  I  said, 
just  in  time  for  the  children’s  dinner,  and  I  had  not 
even  remembered  the  circumstance  until  the  moment 
when  I  fixed  my  eyes  upon  my  little  daughter’s.”1 

It  is  very  difficult,  in  fact  impossible,  as  the  reader 


’Quoted  in  Hyslop:  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  p.  113. 


2S4 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


will  at  once  see  from  the  example  given,  to  prove  genu¬ 
ine  reported  cases  of  spontaneous  telepathy.  They  rest 
entirely  on  the  word  of  the  reporter.  Prepared  tests, 
under  conditions  absolutely  excluding  fraud  or  chance, 
are  perhaps  no  less  interesting,  and  infinitely  more  con¬ 
clusive. 

The  method  generally  used  by  the  Society  in  its  test 
experiments  in  telepathy  is  thus  described  by  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  in  his  account  of  Mr.  Malcolm  Guthrie’s  Liver¬ 
pool  sittings:1  “The  experiments  which  I  have  wit¬ 
nessed  proceed  in  this  sort  of  way :  One  person  is  told 
to  keep  in  a  perfectly  passive  condition,  with  a  mind 
as  vacant  as  possible ;  and  to  assist  this  condition  the 
organs  of  sense  are  unexcited,  the  eyes  being  bandaged 
and  silence  maintained.  It  might  be  as  well  to  shut 
out  the  ordinary  street  hum  by  plugging  the  ears,  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  this  was  not  done. 

“A  person  thus  kept  passive  is  ‘the  percipient.’  In 
the  experiments  I  witnessed  the  percipient  was  a  young 
lady,  one  or  other  of  two  who  had  been  accidentally 
found  to  possess  the  necessary  power.  Whether  it  is 
a  common  power,  or  not,  I  do  not  know.  So  far  as 
I  am  aware,  very  few  persons  have  been  tried.  I  my¬ 
self  tried,  but  failed  abjectly.  It  was  easy  enough  to 
picture  things  to  oneself,  but  they  did  not  appear  to 
be  impressed  on  me  from  without,  nor  did  any  of  them 
bear  the  least  resemblance  to  the  object  in  the  agent’s 
mind.  For  instance,  I  said  a  pair  of  scissors  instead 
of  the  five  of  diamonds,  and  things  like  that.” 

In  this  connection  it  might  be  interesting  to  quote 
an  experience  of  the  late  Dr.  Hudson,  throwing 


‘See  the  S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  i,  pt.  6,  pp.  190-8. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


935 


light,  as  it  does,  on  the  very  natural  question,  Is 
telepathy  a  faculty  dormant  in  every  person,  capable 
of  being  developt  by  proper  training?  “I  determined, 
if  possible,  to  develop  the  faculty  in  my  own  mind,  at 
least  far  enough  to  resolve  any  lingering  doubt  that 
might  be  unconsciously  entertained.  Accordingly,  I 
caused  myself  to  be  securely  blindfolded  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  my  family  and  two  or  three  trustworthy  friends, 
and  instructed  them  to  draw  a  card  from  the  pack, 
place  it  upon  a  table,  face  up,  and  in  full  view  of  all 
but  myself.  I  enjoined  absolute  silence,  and  requested 
them  to  gaze  steadily  upon  the  card  and  patiently  await 
results.  I  determined  not  to  yield  to  any  mere  mental 
impression,  but  to  watch  for  a  vision  of  the  card  itself. 
I  endeavored  to  become  as  passive  as  possible  and  to 
shut  out  all  objective  thoughts.  In  fact,  I  tried  to  go 
to  sleep.  I  soon  found  that  the  moment  I  approached 
a  state  of  somnolence  I  began  to  see  visions  of  self- 
illuminated  objects  floating  in  the  darkness  before  me. 
If,  however,  one  seemed  to  be  taking  definite  shape 
it  would  instantly  rouse  me,  and  the  vision  would  van¬ 
ish.  At  length  I  mastered  my  curiosity  sufficiently  to 
enable  me  to  hold  the  vision  long  enough  to  perceive 
its  import.  When  that  was  accomplisht,  I  saw — not 
a  card  with  its  spots  clearly  defined,  but  a  number  of 
objects  arranged  in  rows,  and  resembling  real  dia¬ 
monds.  I  was  finally  able  to  count  them,  and  finding 
that  there  were  ten,  I  ventured  to  name  the  ten  of 
diamonds.  The  applause  which  followed  told  me  that 
I  was  right,  and  I  removed  the  bandage  and  found 
the  ten  of  diamonds  lying  on  the  table.  The  vision 
was  symbolical  merely,  but  no  other  possible  symbol 


236  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

could  have  conveyed  a  clearer  idea  of  the  fact  as  it 
existed.’'1 

To  return  to  the  account  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge :  “An¬ 
other  person  sitting  near  the  percipient,  sometimes  at 
first  holding  her  hands,  but  usually  and  ordinarily  with¬ 
out  any  contact  at  all  but  with  a  distinct  intervening 
distance,  was  told  to  think  hard  of  a  particular  object, 
either  a  name,  or  a  scene,  or  a  thing,  or  of  an  object 
or  drawing  set  up  in  a  good  light  and  in  a  convenient 
position  for  staring  at.  This  person  is  ‘the  agent,’  and 
has,  on  the  whole,  the  hardest  time  of  it.  It  is  a  most 
tiring  and  tiresome  thing  to  stare  at  a  letter,  or  a  tri¬ 
angle,  or  a  donkey,  or  a  teaspoon,  and  to  think  of  noth¬ 
ing  else  for  the  space  of  two  or  three  minutes.  Wheth¬ 
er  the  term  ‘thinking’  can  properly  be  applied  to  such 
barbarous  concentration  of  mind  as  this  I  am  not  sure ; 
but  I  can  answer  for  it  that  if  difficulty  is  an  important 
element  in  the  definition  of  ‘thinking,’  then  it  is  difficult 
enough  in  all  conscience. 

“Very  frequently  more  than  one  agent  is  employed, 
and  when  two  or  three  people  are  in  the  room  they 
are  all  told  to  think  of  the  object  more  or  less  strenu¬ 
ously,  the  idea  being  that  wandering  thoughts  in  the 
neighborhood  certainly  cannot  help,  and  may  possi¬ 
bly  hinder,  the  clear  transfer  of  impression.  As  re¬ 
gards  the  question  whether,  when  several  agents  are 
thinking,  only  one  is  doing  the  work,  or  whether  all 
really  produce  some  effect,  I  have  made  a  special  ex¬ 
periment  which  leads  me  to  conclude  that  more  than 
one  agent  can  be  active  at  the  same  time.  We  con¬ 
jecture  that  several  agents  are  probably  more  power- 


’Hudson:  The  Evolution  of  the  Soul,  p.  188. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


237 


ful  than  one,  but  that  a  confusedness  of  impression  may 
sometimes  be  produced  by  different  agents  attending 
to  different  parts  or  aspects  of  the  object;  this,  how¬ 
ever,  is  mere  conjecture. 

“Most  people  seem  able  to  act  as  agents,  tho  some 
appear  to  do  better  than  others.  I  can  hardly  say 
whether  I  am  much  good  at  it  or  not.  I  have  not 
often  tried  alone,  and  in  the  majority  of  cases  when 
I  have  tried  I  have  failed ;  on  the  other  hand,  I  have 
once  or  twice  apparently  succeeded.  We  have  many 
times  succeeded  with  agents  quite  disconnected  from 
the  percipient  in  ordinary  life,  and  sometimes  complete 
strangers  to  them  .  .  . 

“The  object  looked  at  by  the  agent  is  placed,  usu¬ 
ally,  on  a  small,  black,  opaque  wooden  screen,  between 
the  percipient  and  agents,  but  sometimes  it  is  put  on 
a  larger  screen  behind  the  percipient.” 

The  Proof  of  Telepathy 

The  above  gives  a  very  clear  idea  as  to  how  the 
telepathic  experiments  were  conducted.  Obviously, 
nothing  could  be  simpler  or  fairer.  Now  for  some 
examples  of  the  ideas  transmitted.  First,  the  transmis¬ 
sion  of  thoughts  of  objects.  In  these  experiments,  re¬ 
corded  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,1  a  Miss  R.  was  the  per¬ 
cipient,  and  Mr.  Birchall,  mentioned  above,  the  agent. 

“Object — a  blue  square  of  silk. —  (Now,  it’s  going 
to  be  a  color;  ready!)  ‘Is  it  green?’  (No.)  ‘It’s 
something  between  green  and  blue.  .  .  .  Peacock.’ 
(What  shape?)  She  drew  a  rhombus.  .  .  . 

“Next  object — a  key  on  a  black  ground. — (It’s  an 
object.)  In  a  few  seconds  she  said,  ‘It’s  bright.  ...  It 


*S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  Vol.  I.,  Part  VI.,  pp.  190-8. 


288  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

looks  like  a  key/  Told  to  draw  it,  she  drew  it  just  in¬ 
verted. 

“Next  object — three  gold  studs  in  morocco  case. — ‘Is 
it  yellow  ?  .  .  .  Something  gold  .  .  .  Something  round 
...  A  locket  or  a  watch,  perhaps.’  (Do  you  see  more 
than  one  round?)  ‘Yes;  there  seem  to  be  more  than 
one.  .  .  .  Are  there  three  rounds?  .  .  .  Three  rings.’ 
(What  do  they  seem  to  be  set  in?)  ‘Something  bright, 
like  beads.’  (Evidently  not  understanding  or  attend¬ 
ing  to  the  question.)  Told  to  unblindfold  herself  and 
draw,  she  drew  the  three  rounds  in  a  row  quite  cor¬ 
rectly,  and  then  sketched  around  them  absently  the 
outline  of  the  case,  which  seemed,  therefore,  to  have 
been  apparent  to  her,  tho  she  had  not  consciously  at¬ 
tended  to  it.  It  was  an  interesting  and  striking  experi¬ 
ment. 

“Next  object — a  pair  of  scissors,  standing  partly 
open,  with  their  points  down. — ‘Is  it  a  bright  object? 
.  .  .  Something  long  ways  (indicating  verticality). 
...  A  pair  of  scissors  standing  up.  ...  A  little  bit 
open.’  Time,  about  a  minute  altogether.  She  then 
drew  her  impression,  and  it  was  correct  in  every  par¬ 
ticular.  The  object  in  this  experiment  was  on  a  settee 
behind  her,  but  its  position  had  to  be  pointed  out  to 
her  when,  after  the  experiment,  she  wanted  to  see  it. 

“ Next  object — a  drawing  of  a  right-angle  triangle 
on  its  side. — (It’s  a  drawing.)  She  drew  an  isosceles 
triangle  on  its  side. 

“Next — a  circle  with  a  cord  across  it. — She  drew 
two  detached  ovals,  one  with  a  cutting  line  across  it. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


239 


“Next — a  drawing  of  a  Union  Jack  pattern. — As 
usual  in  drawing  experiments,  Miss  R.  remained  silent 


for  perhaps  a  minute,  then  she  said,  ‘Now  I  am  ready.’ 
I  hid  the  object;  she  took  off  the  handkerchief,  and 
proceeded  to  draw  on  paper  placed  ready  in  front  of 
her.  She  this  time  drew  all  the  lines  of  the  figure 
except  the  horizontal  middle  one.  She  was  obviously 
much  tempted  to  draw  this,  and,  indeed,  began  it  two 
or  three  times  faintly,  but  ultimately  said,  ‘No,  I’m  not 
sure,’  and  stopped.” 

Here  are  two  interesting  ‘‘Experiments  at  a  Sitting 
in  the  room  of  Dr.  Herdman,  Professor  of  Zoology  at 
University  College.” 

“Object — a  drawing  of  the  outline  of  a  flag. — Miss 
R.,  as  percipient,  in  contact  with  Miss  E.  as  agent. 


ORIGINAL  REPRODUCTION 

Very  quickly  Miss  R.  said,  ‘It’s  a  little  flag’;  and  when 
asked  to  draw,  she  drew  it  fairly  well,  but  perverted. 


240 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


I  showed  her  the  flag  (as  usual  after  a  success),  and 
then  took  it  away  to  the  drawing-place  to  fetch  some¬ 
thing  else.  I  made  another  drawing,  but  instead  of 
bringing  it  I  brought  the  flag  back  again,  and  set  it 
up  in  the  same  place  as  before,  but  inverted.  There 
was  no  contact  this  time.  Miss  R — d  and  Miss  E.  were 
acting  as  agents. 

“Object — same  flag,  inverted. — After  some  time 
Miss  R.  said:  ‘No,  I  can’t  see  anything  this  time.  I 
still  see  that  flag.  .  .  .  The  flag  keeps  bothering  me. 
...  I  sha’n’t  do  it  this  time.’  Presently  I  said,  Well, 
draw  what  you  saw,  anyway.’  She  said,  ‘I  only  saw 
the  same  flag,  but  perhaps  it  had  a  cross  on  it.’  So  she 
drew  a  flag  in  the  same  position  as  before,  but  added 
a  cross  to  it.  Questioned  as  to  aspect,  she  said,  ‘Yes, 
it  was  just  the  same  as  before.’  ” 

Mr.  Guthrie  also  conducted  a  very  remarkable  se¬ 
ries  of  twelve  drawings,  some  rather  complicated,  by 
thought  transference.  The  results  obtained  were  de¬ 
cidedly  in  support  of  the  telepathic  theory,  even  the 
partial  failures,  as  is  often  the  case,  being  corrobora¬ 
tive,  and  very  interesting.  These  drawings  are  re¬ 
produced  by  Dr.  Funk  in  The  Widoiv’s  Mite. 

An  interesting  variation  was  made  in  one  case:  one 
agent  thought  of  one  drawing  and  simultaneously  an¬ 
other  agent  thought  of  another  drawing,  the  percipient 
not  knowing  that  anything  unusual  was  being  tried. 
“A  mixed  and  curiously  double  impression  was  thus 
produced  and  described  by  the  percipient,  and  both 
the  objects  were  correctly  drawn.”  The  account  says: 
“Miss  R — d  and  Miss  E.  happened  to  be  sitting  near- 


1.  The  table  at  rest 


II.  The  table  in  the  air 

A  Typical  Table  Levitation  with  Eusapia  Paladino 

The  man  on  the  right  is  Flammarion,  on  the  left  Lombroso 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  241 

ly  facing  one  another.  .  .  .  The  drawing  was  a  square 
on  one  side  of  the  paper,  a  cross  on  the  other.  Miss 

X 

ORIGINALS 

R — d  looked  at  the  side  with  the  square  on  it.  Miss 
E.  looked  at  the  side  with  the  cross.  Neither  knew 
what  the  other  was  looking  at.  .  .  .  Mr.  Birchall  was 
silently  asked  to  take  off  his  attention,  and  he  got  up 
and  looked  out  of  the  window  before  the  drawings 
were  brought  in,  and  during  the  experiment.  There 
was  no  contact.  Very  soon  Miss  R.  said,  ‘I  see  things 
moving  about.  ...  I  seem  to  see  two  things.  ...  I 
see  first  one  up  there  and  then  one  down  there.  ...  I 
don’t  know  which  to  draw.  ...  I  can’t  see  either  dis¬ 
tinctly.’  (Well,  anyhow  draw  what  you  have  seen.) 
She  took  off  the  bandage  and  drew,  first,  a  square,  and 
then  said,  ‘Then  there  was  the  other  thing  as  well  .  .  . 


REPRODUCTION 


afterward  they  seemed  to  go  into  one,’  and  she  drew 
a  cross  inside  the  square,  from  corner  to  corner,  add- 


24>2  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

ing  afterward,  ‘I  don’t  know  what  made  me  put  it  in¬ 
side.’  ’,:l 

Another  decidedly  encouraging  series  of  experi¬ 
ments  was  conducted  by  Edmund  Gurney  and  Fred¬ 
eric  Myers,  the  transference  this  time  being,  not 
of  thoughts  of  objects,  but  of  tastes.  “The  agent  was 
Mr.  G.  A.  Smith,  and  the  ‘subject’  a  very  intelligent 
young  cabinetmaker,  named  Conway,  who  had  been 
thrown  into  a  light  hypnotic  trance.  For  the  first  set 
Mr.  Smith  was  in  light  contact  with  Conway,  behind 
whom  he  stood.  No  hint  was  given  to  Conway  as  to 
whether  his  answers  were  right  or  wrong ;  he  was 
simply  asked  by  Dr.  Myers  or  myself  what  he  felt. 
Mr.  Smith  kept  perfect  silence  thruout.2 

I  now  gave  Mr.  Smith 


in  succession —  Conway  said : 

Sugar . “Sweeter;  not  so  bad  as  before.” 

Citric  acid. . . . “Bitter;  something  worse — a  lit¬ 

tle  reminds  me  of  cayenne — 
sweety.” 


rA  raspberry  drop ... .“  A  sweetish  taste — like  sugar.” 


Salt . “I  told  you  I  liked  sweet  things, 

not  salt — such  a  mixture !” 

Cloves . “Don’t  like  it;  hot — little  bit  of 

honey  mixed  with  it.” 

Salt . “Something  acid,  salty — first  one 

thing,  then  another — like 

brine.” 


‘See  Nature  for  June  12,  1884. 

’See  S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  Vol.  II.,  Part  VI.,  pp.  205-6. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


243 


Powdered  ginger ...  .“Hot;  dries  your  mouth  up. 


Don’t  like  it — reminds  me  of 
mustard.” 

Sugar . “A  little  better — a  sweetish 

taste.” 

Powdered  alum . “You  call  that  sweet,  do  you? 

Brackish  and  bitter  this — 
enough  to  skin  your  mouth  out 
— bitter.” 


Cayenne  pepper. . “It’s  hot,  and  there  is  some  sugar 

in  it,  just  to  soften  it  over  a 
bit.  It  is  hot — you  would  feel 
hot,  I  can  tell  you.” 

Cloves. . “Not  so  very  much  better,  but 

it’s  sweeter;  it’s  sugar,  only 
something  else  with  it.” 

Vinegar . Conway  had  sunk  into  a  deeper 

hypnotic  sleep,  and  made  no 
remark.” 

These  examples,  remember,  are  not  isolated  cases, 
but  typical  ones  selected  from  a  vast  accumulation  of 
telepathic  data.  The  curious,  and  perhaps  incredulous, 
reader,  is  strongly  urged  to  examine  the  Proceedings 
and  other  publications  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research. 

Mathematical  proof  is  generally  most  convincing  of 
any,  and  fortunately  is  here  not  lacking.  If  we  can 
demonstrate  that  the  number  of  correct  answers  given 
by  a  percipient  is  many  times  greater  than  the  laws  of 
mere  chance  would  allow,  we  have  strong  evidence  of 
the  reality  of  telepathy.  Professor  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick, 


244 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


among  others,  made  extensive  experiments  along  this 
line.  Playing-cards  or  numbers  were  generally  select¬ 
ed  for  the  thought  transmission,  as  it  was  with  them 
easier  to  calculate  the  mathematical  chances. 

The  principle  involved  is  simple.  If  a  person  is  told 
that  some  number  between  I  and  ioo  is  to  be  thought 
of,  the  chances  are  ioo  to  I  that  he  will  guess  the  cor¬ 
rect  number.  In  other  words,  the  chances  are  that  out 
of  every  hundred  guesses  he  will  get  one  right.  If 
we  find  that  instead  of  one  out  of  a  hundred,  the  per¬ 
cipient  gets  thirty  or  forty  or  sixty  “guesses”  right,  we 
say,  quite  reasonably,  that  there  must  be  something 
more  here  than  guessing. 

Similarly,  with  a  pack  of  cards ;  the  chances  that  a 
person  will  guess  correctly  the  suit  of  any  card  chosen 
at  random  are  4  to  i ;  the  chances  that  he  will  guess 
the  number  of  a  card  correctly  are  13  to  1 ;  the  chances 
that  he  will  name  correctly  both  suit  and  number — that 
is,  tell  the  exact  card  out  of  the  whole  pack — are  52 
to  1.  If,  therefore,  the  percipient  manages  forty  times 
out  of  fifty  to  tell  you  correctly  the  exact  card  you 
are  thinking  about,  you  say  at  once  there  must  be 
thought  transference  here. 

The  actual  percentages  of  Professor  Sidgwick’s  ex¬ 
periments  are  not  quite  as  high  as  in  our  supposititious 
case ;  but  they  are  many  times  greater  than  pure  chance 
would  indicate.  “The  results  were:  Twenty-three  tri¬ 
als,  with  six  answers  right  the  first  time  and  six  the 
second  guess.  Counting  only  the  correct  answers  for 
the  first  guess,  the  percentage  was  one  in  three  and 
three-fourths,  or  twenty-six  per  cent.,  against  one 
chance  in  fifty-two,  or  about  two  per  cent.,  as  cards 
were  used. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


£45 


“Professor  Balfour  Stewart  reports  a  table  much 
better  than  this.  He  experimented  with  numbers  be¬ 
tween  ten  and  one  hundred;  with  objects,  and  names, 
as  well  as  cards. 


Things 

chosen 

No.  of 
trials 

No.  right  on 

1st.  guess  2d.  guess 

If  first  guess 
only  counted 

Chances 

Cards 
Nos.  from 

36 

IO 

9 

i  right  in 

I  in  52 

10  to  IOO 

20 

5 

3 

1  “  “4 

1  “  90 

Objects 

21 

6 

1 

1  “  “3 

1  “  40 

Names 

8 

4 

3 

1  “  “2 

I  ndefini  te 

“To  remove  the  objections  which  might  be  based 
very  naturally  upon  fraud  and  suggestion  in  certain 
conditions,  the  committee  made  experiments  in  which 
the  selected  objects  were  known  only  to  one  or  more 
of  the  committee  itself,  and  the  results  were  summar¬ 
ized  in  the  following  statistics,  the  things  chosen  being, 
variously,  cards,  numbers  and  words.  There  were  497 
trials  made.  Of  these,  ninety-five  were  correct  on  the 
first  guess  .  .  .  forty-five  on  the  second  .  .  .  five  on 
the  third.  .  .  .  The  chances  for  success  were  estimated 
as  one  in  forty-three,  while  the  actual  success  was  one 
in  5i>  or  two  per  cent,  for  the  chances  and  nineteen 
per  cent,  for  the  successes.”1 

Telepathic  Hypnosis  and  Suggestion 

Soon  after  telepathy  began  to  be  studied,  and  proofs 
of  its  existence  began  to  accumulate,  the  question  was 
asked:  If  thoughts  (impressions)  can  be  thus  trans¬ 
mitted  at  a  distance,  why  cannot  motor  suggestions 
(expressions)  ?  In  other  words,  if  I  can  make  you, 


‘Hyslop:  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  pp.  122-3. 


246 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


perhaps  miles  away,  think  of  the  picture  of  which  I 
am  thinking,  why  cannot  I  make  you,  still  miles  away, 
tnove  your  arm  as  I  suggest  to  you  telepathically  ? 

The  best  answer,  of  course,  was  to  try  and  see ;  and 
we  have  one  or  two  striking  examples  of  this  telepathic 
suggestion.  We  have  already  mentioned  the  case  of 
Conway,  receiving  telepathically  the  tastes  of  things 
which  another  man  was  eating.  Of  hypnosis  exerted 
telepathically,  Myers  gives  one  remarkable  instance : 

“The  subject  of  these  experiments  .  .  .  was  Profes¬ 
sor  Pierre  Janet’s  well-known  subject,  Madame  B. 
The  experiments  were  carried  out  with  her  at  Havre, 
by  Professor  Janet  and  Dr.  Gibert,  a  leading  physi¬ 
cian  there.  .  .  . 

“In  the  evening  (22d)  we  all  dined  at  M.  Gibert’s, 
and  in  the  evening  M.  Gibert  made  another  attempt  to 
put  her  to  sleep  at  a  distance  from  his  house  in  the 
Rue  Sery — she  being  at  the  Pavilion,  Rue  de  la  Ferme 
— and  to  bring  her  to  his  house  by  an  effort  of  will. 
At  8.55  he  retired  to  his  study,  and  MM.  Ochorowicz, 
Marillier,  Janet,  and  A.  T.  Myers,  went  to  the  Pavil¬ 
ion,  and  waited  outside  in  the  street,  out  of  sight  of  the 
house.  At  9.22  Dr.  Myers  observed  Madame  B.  com¬ 
ing  half  way  out  of  the  garden  gate,  and  again  re¬ 
treating.  Those  who  saw  her  more  closely  observed 
that  she  was  plainly  in  the  somnambulic  state,  and  was 
wandering  about  and  muttering.  At  9.25  she  came  out 
(with  eyes  persistently  closed,  so  far  as  could  be  seen), 
walked  quickly  past  MM.  Janet  and  Marillier  without 
noticing  them,  and  made  for  M.  Gibert’s  house,  tho 
not  by  the  usual  or  shortest  route.  (It  appeared  after¬ 
ward  that  the  bonne  had  seen  her  go  into  the  salon  at 
8.45,  and  issue  thence,  asleep,  at  9.15;  had  not  looked 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


247 


in  between  those  times) .  She  avoided  lamp-posts,  ve¬ 
hicles,  etc.,  but  crossed  and  recrossed  the  street  re¬ 
peatedly.  No  one  went  in  front  of  her  or  spoke  to 
her.  After  eight  or  ten  minutes  she  grew  much  more 
uncertain  in  gait,  and  paused  as  tho  she  would  fall. 
Dr.  Myers  noted  the  moment  in  the  Rue  Faure;  it  was 
9.35.  At  about  9.40  she  grew  bolder,  and  at  9.45 
reached  the  street  in  front  of  M.  Gibert’s  house.  There 
she  met  him,  but  did  not  notice  him,  and  walked  into 
his  house,  where  she  rushed  hurriedly  from  room  to 
room  on  the  ground-floor.  M.  Gibert  had  to  take 
her  hand  before  she  recognized  him.  She  then  grew 
calm. 

“M.  Gibert  said  that  from  8.55  to  9.20  he  thought 
intently  about  her,  from  9.20  to  9.35  he  thought  more 
feebly ;  at  9.35  he  gave  the  experiment  up,  and  began 
to  play  billiards ;  but  in  a  few  minutes  began  to  will 
her  again.  It  appeared  that  his  visit  to  the  billiard- 
room  had  coincided  with  her  hesitation  and  stumbling 
in  the  street.  But  this  coincidence  may,  of  course,  have 
been  accidental.  .  .  ,”x 

Another  example  of  a  similar  power  is  noted  by  Dr. 
Hyslop  in  his  discussion  of  telepathic  experiments,  the 
object  of  which  was  to  induce  unconsciousness  in  some 
portion  of  another  person’s  body  by  merely  thinking  it. 

“There  were  107  trials  at  the  production  of  anesthe¬ 
sia  by  telepathy  in  a  selected  finger,  the  finger  selected 
varying  as  required.  There  was,  of  course,  one  chance 
out  of  ten  each  time  that  the  finger  would  be  guessed, 
if  it  were  a  mere  question  of  telepathy  or  getting  what 

1See  the  Bulletins  de  la  Socicte  de  Psychologie  Physiologique, 
tome  1,  p.  24,  and  Revue  Philosophique,  August,  1886.  See 
also  Myers :  Human  Personality,  pp.  382-3. 


248 


ARE  THE  HEAD  ALIVE? 


the  agent  was  thinking  about.  But  here  the  additional 
circumstance  that  anesthesia  was  to  be  produced  makes 
the  matter  more  difficult  and  interesting.  But  of  the 
107  trials,  sixty-three,  or  nearly  fifty-nine  per  cent., 
were  successes ;  and  forty,  or  more  than  forty-six  per 
cent.,  of  the  instances  were  failures.  The  chances 
against  success  were  enormous  when  the  whole  num¬ 
ber  is  taken  into  account.”1 

The  field  that  these  and  similar  experiments  open 
up  for  a  possible  enlargement  of  our  normal  human 
powers  is,  obviously,  so  wonderful  as  to  be  little  short 
of  miraculous.  If  I  can,  by  merely  thinking,  paralyze 
a  man’s  finger  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  room,  there 
is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  the  phenomena  why  I 
cannot  spontaneously,  by  merely  thinking,  paralyze  a 
man’s  whole  body  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  world. 
If  I  can,  by  thinking,  make  a  man  near  me  imagine 
he  is  tasting  salt,  there  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of 
the  phenomena  why  I  cannot,  by  merely  thinking,  cause 
my  friend  in  Greenland  to  taste  and  imagine  he  is  eat¬ 
ing  a  square  meal.  (This  genuinely  Barmecide  feast 
would  probably  give  him  very  slender  nourishment, 
however!)  Do  the  Arabian  Nights  or  Baron  Mun¬ 
chausen  present  any  wilder  dreams  of  the  imagination 
than  these  wonders  that  sober  scientists  and  psycholo¬ 
gists  assert  are  veritable  actual  facts  ? 

What  Is  Telepathy? 

Regarding  the  nature  or  cause  of  this  telepathic  abil¬ 
ity,  questions  are  easy  to  ask,  but  difficult  to  answer. 
Myers  believed,  and  his  opinion  is  concurred  in  by 
other  investigators,  that  telepathy  is  one  of  the  powers 
of  the  “subliminal  self,”  that  great  submerged  portion 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


249 


of  our  personalty  of  which  I  have  already  spoken. 
When  we  wish  to  exert  telepathic  powers,  the  first 
thing  we  do  is  to  put  in  abeyance  the  supraliminal  (or 
ordinary)  self.  That  is,  as  the  percipient  shuts  out  her 
ordinary  consciousness,  stops  up  the  senses  of  sight 
and  hearing,  so  much  the  more  clearly  does  the  sub¬ 
liminal  self  do  its  telepathic  work.  If  the  condition 
is  carried  a  step  further,  and  the  percipient  is  lightly 
hypnotized  (that  is,  remember,  the  body  is  put  un¬ 
der  the  control  of  the  subliminal  self),  the  ability  to  re¬ 
ceive  telepathic  messages  is  correspondingly  again  in¬ 
creased. 

It  is  as  if  a  man  in  his  normal  consciousness  saw 
with  his  normal  eyes,  heard  with  his  material  ears, 
thought  with  a  brain  of  cell  and  tissue.  But  let  a  por¬ 
tion  of  the  subliminal  consciousness  be  put  in  control 
of  his  body — even  tho  it  be  involuntary,  and  for  a  sec¬ 
ond  s  dash  of  tune — and  the  man  finds  he  exerts  the 
same  abilities  of  sight  and  hearing  and  thinking,  but 
abilities  marvelously  magnified  many  times. 

H ow  this  happens,  we,  as  yet,  simply  don’t  know ; 
but  that  it  does  happen,  a  very  large  number  of  very 
eminent  scientists  sincerely  believe. 


“WE  ONLY  DEAL  WITH  PRESUMPTION  AND 
PREJUDICES” 


The  question,  “Are  the  Dead  Alive?”  means,  I  suppose,  “Does 
consciousness  survive  the  death  of  the  body?”  It  is  at  present 
impossible — setting  aside  faith  and  religion — for  any  mortal  to 
answer  this  question  on  grounds  of  actual  experimental  knowl¬ 
edge.  We  only  deal  with  presumption  and  prejudices.  Since 
man  was  man,  it  has  been  sufficiently  obvious  that  normal  in¬ 
telligence — “the  mind” — develops  and  decays  as  the  fleshly 
body  develops  and  decays.  The  mind  flourishes  and  is  at  its 
best,  as  a  rule,  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  twenty- 
eight,  in  my  private  opinion,  but  every  one  can  fix  the  age  of 
intellectual  vigor  in  accordance  with  his  own  observation, 
knowledge  and  experience.  It  is  admitted,  universally,  that 
the  mind,  like  the  body,  has  its  periods  of  growth,  maturity, 
decadence  and  decay.  Consequently,  it  is  a  natural  inference 
that  when  the  bodily  life  of  the  individual  is  extinct,  the  life 
of  the  mind  vanishes  like  the  flame  of  a  burned-out  candle.  It 
is  no  less  clear,  and  has  been  clear  to  mankind  from  the 
first,  that  the  normal  consciousness  can  be  extinguished,  tem¬ 
porarily,  by  a  sufficient  knock  on  the  head;  and  that  in  dream¬ 
less  sleep  it  gives  no  signs  (to  its  owner’s  normal  conscious¬ 
ness)  of  its  existence.  The  inference  that  death  is  a  sleep 
which  knows  no  waking  is  no  ancient  commonplace.  When 
modern  science  minutely  examines  the  nervous  and  cerebral 
mechanisms,  and  knows  that  each  mental  action  has  a  cerebral 
concomitant,  the  conclusion  that  consciousness,  that  mental 
existence,  is  a  bodily  function,  like  digestion,  seems  quite 
natural. 

Yet  we  have  only  presumptions.  On  the  other  side,  since 
man  was  man,  other  phenomena  have  been  observed  which 
have  led  to  the  opposite  conclusion.  Among  human  faculties 
those  of  clairvoyance,  or  “Vue  a  distance,”  and  telepathy — 
communication  between  mind  and  mind  through  no  known 

250 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


251 


channel  of  the  senses;  of  precognition  and  retrocognition — 
the  inexplicable  knowledge  of  things  past  and  things  future — 
have  always  been  recognized  in  belief,  and  have,  by  many, 
been  accepted  as  facts  of  experience.  If  they  are  facts — and 
I  am  persuaded  that  they  are — and  if  the  system  which  we 
call  materialism  can  only  ignore  them  and  deny  them  without 
examining  the  evidence,  then  there  is  no  limit  to  the  range 
and  possibilities.  Consciousness  so  independent  of  a  known 
material  base  for  such  exploits  may  be  capable  of  a  separate 
existence,  for  all  that  we  can  tell.  But  till  science  pays  more 
serious  attention  to  the  alleged  phenomena,  every  one  will 
form  an  opinion,  or  go  without  an  opinion,  in  accordance  with 
his  own  temperament,  bias  and  information.  As  the  Greek 
poet  says,  “Soon  shall  we  know  better  than  prophets.” 

— Andrew  Lang. 


CHAPTER  XI 


PREMONITIONS 

I  have  set  by  themselves  a  large  and  important  group 
of  telepathic  phenomena  that  we  call  premonitions.  I 
say  “telepathic”;  but  we  shall  note  several  examples 
where  the  information  received  could  apparently  come 
from  no  mortal  mind. 

A  premonition  is  advance  information  of  a  coming 
event,  imparted  to  our  consciousness  inexplicably,  and 
often  instantaneously.  We  say  that  we  have  “premoni¬ 
tions”  of  impending  disaster.  What  do  we  mean? 

Examples  will  probably  occur  to  every  reader ;  the 
literature  of  spiritualism  is  full  of  them.  “A  .  .  .  Mr. 
Skirving  .  .  .  was  irresistibly  compelled  to  leave  his 
work  and  go  home — why,  he  knew  not — at  the  moment 
when  his  wife  was,  in  fact,  calling  for  him  in  the  dis¬ 
tress  of  a  serious  accident.”1 

“A  Mr.  Garrison,  .  .  .  left  a  religious  meeting  in 
the  evening,  and  walked  eighteen  miles  under  the 
strong  impulse  to  see  his  mother,  and  found  her  dead.”2 

“Mrs.  Mary  A.  Livermore,  famous  for  her  devoted 
services  during  the  war,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
woman  speakers  that  the  world  has  ever  known,  told 


1See  Myers :  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  v.  i,  p.  285. 

JS.  P.  R.  Journal,  v.  8,  p.  125. 

252 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


253 


me  how  her  life  was  saved  during  her  travels  in  the 
West,  on  a  certain  occasion,  by  her  hearing  and  in¬ 
stantly  obeying  a  voice.  She  did  not  know  where  it 
came  from,  but  she  leaped  as  the  voice  ordered  her  to, 
from  one  side  of  a  car  to  the  other,  and  instantly  the 
side  where  she  had  been  sitting  was  crushed  in  and 
utterly  demolished.”1 

“A  bricklayer  has  a  sudden  impulse  to  run  home, 
and  arrives  just  in  time  to  save  the  life  of  his  little  boy, 
who  had  set  himself  on  fire.”2 

“A  Boston  dentist  had  been  working  at  a  set  of 
teeth,  and  was  bending  over  the  bench  on  which  was 
the  copper  containing  the  rubber,  when-  he  heard  a 
voice  calling,  in  a  quick  and  imperative  manner,  these 
words :  ‘Run  to  the  window,  quick  !  Run  to  the  win¬ 
dow,  quick !’  twice  repeated.  Without  thinking  from 
whom  the  voice  could  have  come,  he  at  once  ran  to 
the  window  and  looked  out  to  the  street  below,  when 
suddenly  he  heard  a  tremendous  report  in  his  work¬ 
room,  and  looking  around,  he  saw  the  copper  vessel 
had  exploded,  and  had  been  blown  up  thru  the  plaster¬ 
ing  of  the  room.”3 

“Major  Kobbe  .  .  .  was  prompted  to  visit  a  distant 
cemetery,  without  any  conscious  reason,  and  there 
found  his  father,  who  had,  in  fact,  for  certain  unex¬ 
pected  reasons,  sent  to  his  son,  Major  Kobbe,  a  request 
(accidentally  not  received)  to  meet  him  at  that  place 
and  hour.”4 


'Savage:  Life  Beyond  Death,  p.  284. 

’Myers :  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  v.  2,  p.  377. 
‘Hyslop:  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  pp.  310-11. 
‘Myers :  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  v.  1,  p.  288. 


254« 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


All  these  are  typical  cases1  out  of  a  great  number. 
What  does  it  mean?  Whence  come  these  mysterious 
warning  voices  that  stand  us  in  such  good  stead  ? 

To  take  an  even  more  striking  example:  “Mr.  Wm. 
H.  Wyman  writes  to  the  editor  of  the  Arena  as  fol¬ 
lows  : 

“  ‘Dunkirk,  N.  Y.,  June  26,  1891. 

“  ‘Some  years  ago  my  brother  was  employed,  and 
had  charge  as  conductor  and  engineer  of  a  working 
train,  on  the  Lake  Shore  &  Michigan  Southern  Rail¬ 
way,  running  between  Buffalo  and  Erie,  which  passes 
thru  this  city.  ...  I  often  went  with  him  to  the  Grave 
Bank,  where  he  has  his  headquarters,  and  returned  on 
his  train  with  him.  On  one  occasion  I  was  with  him, 
and  after  the  train  of  cars  was  loaded  we  went  to¬ 
gether  to  the  telegraph  office  to  see  if  there  were  any 
orders,  and  to  find  out  if  the  trains  were  on  time,  as 
he  had  to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  all  regular  trains. 
After  looking  over  the  train  reports,  and  finding  them 
all  on  time,  we  started  for  Buffalo.  As  we  approached 
near  Westfield  Station,  running  about  twelve  miles  per 
hour,  and  when  within  about  one  mile  of  a  long  curve 
in  the  line,  my  brother  all  of  a  sudden  shutt  off  the 
steam,  and  quickly  stepping  over  to  the  fireman’s  side 
of  the  engine,  he  looked  out  of  the  cab  window,  and 
then  to  the  rear  of  his  train,  to  see  if  there  was  any¬ 
thing  the  matter  with  either.  Not  discovering  any¬ 
thing  wrong,  he  stopped  and  put  on  steam,  but  almost 
immediately  again  shut  it  off  and  gave  the  signal  for 
brakes,  and  stopped.  After  inspecting  the  engine  and 

1Several  others  are  mentioned  in  Myers:  Human  Person¬ 
ality,  p.  372. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


255 


train,  and  finding  nothing  wrong,  he  seemed  very  much 
excited,  and  for  a  short  time  he  acted  as  if  he  did  not 
know  where  he  was  or  what  to  do.  I  asked  what  was 
the  matter.  He  replied  that  he  did  not  know,  when, 
after  looking  at  his  watch,  and  others,  he  said  that  he 
felt  that  there  was  some  trouble  on  the  line  of  the 
road.  I  suggested  that  he  had  better  run  his  train  to 
the  station  and  find  out.  He  then  ordered  his  flagman 
with  his  flag  to  go  ahead  around  the  curve,  which  was 
just  ahead  of  us,  and  he  would  follow  with  the  train. 
The  flagman  started,  and  had  just  time  to  flag  an  extra 
express,  with  the  general  superintendent  and  others 
on  board,  coming  full  40  (forty)  miles  per  hour.  The 
superintendent  inquired  what  he  was  doing  there,  and 
if  he  did  not  receive  orders  to  keep  out  of  the  way 
of  the  extra.  My  brother  told  him  that  he  had  not  re¬ 
ceived  orders,  and  did  not  know  of  any  extra  train 
coming;  that  we  had  both  examined  the  train  reports 
before  leaving  the  station.  The  train  then  backed  to 
the  station,  where  it  was  found  that  no  orders  had 
been  given.  The  train  despatcher  was  at  once  dis¬ 
charged  from  the  road ;  and  from  that  time  to  this  both 
my  brother  and  myself  are  unable  to  account  for  his 
stopping  the  train  as  he  did.”1 

These,  especially  the  last,  are  evidently  anticipations 
of  future  events;  and  in  an  earlier  chapter  we  had  two 
very  striking  cases  of  actual  precognition,  or  prophecy. 

What  Is  the  Explanation  of  Premonition? 

There  are  apparently  three,  and  only  three,  possible 
explanations  of  premonition. 


‘Reported  in  S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  9,  p.  416. 


256 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


x.  Telepathy:  that  is,  that  the  information  received, 
sometimes  in  the  flash  of  a  second,  was  known  (that 
is,  was  in  the  mind)  of  some  other  human  being  some¬ 
where,  and  was  communicated  instantaneously  to  the 
percipient’s  mind.  This  theory  does  not  explain,  how¬ 
ever,  why  the  percipient,  almost  invariably  busy  with 
other  matters,  should  be  in  a  proper  state  of  sensitive¬ 
ness  to  receive  a  telepathic  message;  it  does  not  ex¬ 
plain  why  this  warning  should  come,  as  it  often  does, 
in  the  very  “nick  of  time,”  as  we  say ;  it  does  not  ex¬ 
plain  those  cases — like  that  of  the  Boston  dentist,  or 
Mrs.  Livermore  in  the  railroad  accident — in  which  it 
is  impossible  to  conceive  how  the  warning  knowledge 
could  be  in  any  other  mind. 

2.  The  second  explanation  is  what  Frederic  Myers 
calls  hyperesthesia ;  that  is,  temporary  abnormal  acute¬ 
ness  of  the  senses;  a  hearing  or  seeing  power  of  the 
subliminal  self  greater  than  the  supraliminal  self  (the 
ordinary  consciousness)  could  ever  exert.  But  altho, 
in  some  way  that  seems  to  us  just  as  miraculous,  the 
engineer  might  have  heard  unconsciously  the  approach 
of  that  express,  many  miles  away,  tho  the  dentist 
might  have  seen,  subconsciously,  some  danger  signal 
in  his  laboratory  vessel  which  he  automatically  obeyed, 
it  is  difficult  to  see  how  this  could  explain  Professor 
Thoulet’s  telegram,  not  written  till  ten  days  after  he 
saw  it,  or  the  sight  of  the  suicide  of  Mr.  Espie,  which 
did  not  occur  until  a  week  later. 

3.  The  third  explanation  is  that  the  premonition  is 
given  by  spirits.  This  is,  of  course,  if  we  accept  the 
spiritualistic  hypothesis  at  all,  the  easy  solution  of 
nearly  all  premonitions.  They  are  messages  whispered 
by  the  spirits  of  the  departed  to  our  subconscious  self, 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


257 


warning  us,  whom  they  love,  of  the  approaching  dan¬ 
ger  which  they  are  able  to  foresee.  Certainly  this 
hypothesis  accounts  for  the  instantaneous  timeliness 
of  many  of  these  premonitions  as  neither  of  the  other 
hypotheses  do. 

I  am  familiar  with  no  other  explanation  of  premoni¬ 
tion  than  those  given.  To  the  theories  of  hyperes¬ 
thesia  and  telepathy  there  are  certainly  grave  objec¬ 
tions;  but  many  will  think  the  theory  of  spiritual 
help,  from  a  scientific  standpoint,  even  more  objec¬ 
tionable. 


“WE  ARE  AT  THE  DAWN  OF  A  NEW  RELIGION  ” 


We  have  a  soul  which  is  making  and  perfecting  its  own 
body.  This  life  is  not  the  first  we  have  lived,  nor  will  it  be 
the  last.  The  material  body  is  passing  on  from  one  evolution 
to  another,  and  the  soul  from  one  reincarnation  to  another. 
This  is  my  belief,  but  that  has  not  been  in  any  radical  way 
influenced  by  my  researches  in  metaphysical  science. 

The  words  in  the  Bible  declaring  that  there  is  nothing  new 
under  the  sun  are  still  good.  To-day  we  only  differ  as  re¬ 
gards  our  belief  in  the  problem  of  haunted  houses,  tipping 
tables  and  materialized  spirits.  And,  most  of  all,  our  method 
of  studying  them  has  progressed.  Psychic  phenomena  existed 
in  the  days  of  the  ancient  Romans.  The  trials  and  punish¬ 
ments  of  sorcerers  and  witches  exist  upon  the  statute  books 
of  the  European  courts  of  the  fifteenth  century.  In  early  times 
the  truth  of  sorcery,  witchcraft,  evil  spirits  and  of  visions 
was  never  questioned.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  a  few  witches 
were  burned  even  in  America,  at  Salem,  Massachusetts. 

To-day — and  it  is  only  to-day — scientific  men,  professors, 
chemical  experts,  doctors — most  of  all  those  interested  in 
nervous  and  neurotic  cases — have  taken  up  seriously  the  study 
of  a  certain  class  of  facts  which  have  come  inevitably  under 
their  observation. 

I  am  not  blind  to  the  fact  that  my  testimony,  unaided, 
would  be  of  very  little  importance.  I  have  made  my  experi¬ 
ments  in  my  own  way,  for  my  own  enlightenment,  without 
any  thought  of  convincing  some  one  else  against  his  will  as 
to  the  truth  of  my  observations.  But  the  results  of  my  labors, 
added  to  those  of  such  men  as  Richet,  Myers,  Lombroso, 
Hodgson,  Flammarion,  Lodge  and  others,  make  a  tangible  be¬ 
ginning  on  the  threshold  of  a  science  which,  if  not  altogether 
new,  is  still  almost  wholly  unexplored.  Perhaps — I  say  per¬ 
haps — out  of  this  will  come  the  unraveling  of  the  mystery 
of  the  “au-dela’%— the  future  life.  I  feel  sometimes  as  if  I 

258 


Dr.  V.  Maxwell 

A  French  lawyer  and  physician,  who,  taking  up  the  subject  at  first 
as  a  hobby,  has  become  one  of  the  most  careful  and  enthusiastic  of  all 
the  investigators  of  psychical  phenomena. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


259 


were  on  the  dawn  of  a  new  religion,  one  in  which  all  humanity 
will  be  united;  one  without  a  ritual,  one  where  no  propa¬ 
ganda  will  be  necessary. 

The  revival  of  interest  in  metapsychical  phenomena  in  the 
present  century  dates  practically  from  the  advent  of  the  Fox 
sisters,  of  Rochester,  New  York.  Thus  we  may  say  that  the 
present  reaction  against  materialism  comes  in  a  great  wave 
out  of  the  West.  It  has  permeated  every  civilized  land,  pene¬ 
trated  into  every  station  of  life,  and  is  sweeping  the  material¬ 
ism  of  the  German  school,  for  instance,  off  its  feet  and  into 
oblivion.  It  would  be  manifestly  impossible  here  for  me 
to  go  into  any  details  as  to  my  experiments  and  observations. 
I  will,  therefore,  only  outline  a  few  facts. 

I  have  demonstrated  to  my  entire  satisfaction  that  there 
exists  in  nature  a  force  capable  of  moving  objects  at  a  dis¬ 
tance  without  contact. 

This  force  is  often  manifested  by  raps  or  other  noises, 
and  the  nature  of  it  remains  as  yet  hidden  or  unexplained. 
On  occasions  it  seems  to  be  a  conscious  or  intelligent  force 
or  forces,  and  there  are  abundant  examples  to  indicate  that 
it  might  be  the  spirits  of  the  dead.  The  preponderance  of 
evidence,  however,  goes  to  prove  that  it  is  an  exteriorized 
force  emanating  from  the  medium  and  from  the  sitters  in  a 
seance.  And  here  we  come  in  contact  with  a  fact  which  we 
cannot  explain.  That  is,  that  only  certain  persons  are  gifted 
with  the  mediumistic  force.  To  find  a  good  medium,  or 
psychic,  is  one  of  the  greatest  stumbling  blocks  in  the  path¬ 
way  of  the  investigator.  In  my  own  experience,  the  most 
powerful  natural  mediums  I  have  found  have  been  persons 
in  private  life,  people  of  position  not  easily  accessible  to  the 
demands  of  the  operator,  who  under  no  circumstance  would 
permit  their  names  to  be  used  in  connection  with  a  published 
report.  Mediums,  like  singers,  are  born;  and,  like  singers,  it 
takes  time,  patience  and  much  work  to  make  their  manifesta¬ 
tions  of  practical  or  scientific  value. 

The  analysis  of  intellectual  phenomena  raises  difficulties 
which  are  much  more  complicated  than  the  simple  observa¬ 
tion  of  a  physical  fact. 

For  this  reason  I  have  given  my  attention  principally  to 


260 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


the  study  of  physical  phenomena.  In  this  I  have  to  defend 
myself  only  against  two  enemies — the  fraud  of  others  and 
my  own  illusions.  Now,  I  feel  certain  of  never  having  been 
the  victim  of  either.  When,  for  example,  as  has  happened  in 
my  experience  many  times,  I  have  seen  in  the  refreshment- 
room  of  a  railway  station,  in  a  restaurant  or  in  a  tea-shop, 
in  broad  daylight,  a  piece  of  furniture  change  place  of  its 
own  accord,  I  have  a  right  to  think  I  am  not  in  the  presence 
of  furniture  especially  arranged  to  produce  such  effects.  When 
I  make  sure  of  the  absence  of  contact  between  the  experi¬ 
menters  and  the  article  which  is  displaced,  I  have  sufficient 
reason  to  exclude  the  hypothesis  of  fraud.  When  I  measure 
the  distance  between  the  objects  before  and  after  displacement, 
I  have  sufficient  reasons  for  excluding  the  hypothesis  of  the 
illusion  of  my  senses.  If  this  right  be  refused  me,  I  should 
like  to  know  how  any  fact  whatever  can  be  observed.  I  have 
but  one  answer  for  those  who  may  distrust  my  qualifications 
as  an  observer:  Let  them  take  the  trouble  of  experimenting 
for  themselves. 

I  have  no  decided  opinion  as  to  the  nature  and  origin  of 
this  force. 

It  may  be  kindred  to  the  energy  which  circulates  in  our 
nerves,  and  causes  our  muscles  to  draw  up.  I  have  always 
thought  there  was  nothing  supernatural  in  these  phenomena. 
My  conclusions  have  not  changed.  I  can  only  certify  to  their 
existence  as  a  fact. 

I  observed  once  a  medium  whose  perspiration  was  luminous. 
When  coming  from  the  daylight  into  a  dark  room,  his  head, 
collar  and  hair  were  phosphorescent.  That  is  not  a  meta¬ 
physical  phenomenon,  only  a  physiological  one,  due  to  the 
presence  of  calcium  sulphide  on  the  perspiration.  But  with 
the  same  medium,  and  with  two  other  ones,  I  have  witnessed 
on  many  occasions  the  phenomenon  called  by  spiritualists 
“spirit  lights.”  These  lights  are  bright  sometimes,  and  at 
other  times  very  weak.  They  do  not  last  long,  but  disappear 
in  a  few  seconds.  My  observations  are  not  sufficient  in  num¬ 
ber  to  allow  me  to  have  an  opinion  on  their  cause.  But 
their  reality  seems  probable  to  me.  They  seemed  to  obey  the 
same  laws  as  the  movements  and  raps.  _ y.  Maxwell. 


CHAPTER  XII 


MEDIUMSHIP 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  this  psychic  prob¬ 
lem  entirely  from  one  end — your  and  my  end,  the  earth- 
world  end.  Supposing  for  a  moment  that  we  may  see 
more  clearly  the  setting  of  the  stage  for  the  final  act 
in  this  drama  of  spiritism,  let  us  view  the  problem 
from  an  imaginary  other  end.  Let  us  suppose  we  are 
“spirits,”  whatever  that  means,  in  a  future  existence, 
wherever  that  may  be,  and  try  to  imagine  what  we 
would  do. 

In  the  first  place,  we  assume  that  we  would  want 
to  communicate,  if  possible,  with  those  we  left  behind 
on  earth. 

But  how  should  we  communicate  ?  On  earth  we  re¬ 
ceive  communications  thru  one  of  two  senses — sight 
or  hearing.  Why  should  “spirits”  be  thought  to  com¬ 
municate  otherwise  ?  But  how  can  they  ?  arises  the  im¬ 
mediate  question,  for  speaking  necessitates  material 
organs  of  speech ;  writing  involves  a  bodily  hand  to 
grasp  a  pencil.  The  spirit  is  immaterial ;  has  no  body ; 
needs  none  to  communicate  in  its  own  world. 

Immediately  comes  the  answer:  the  spirit  may  tem¬ 
porarily  use  some  living  person’s  body!  Exactly:  and 
that  is  just  what  it  seems  to  do.  Really,  when  you 
think  about  it,  is  not  that  the  natural  and  simple  thing 

261 


£6£ 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


for  a  disembodied  spirit  to  do?  Myers  says  he  con¬ 
siders  the  main  objection  usually  raised  to  mediumistic 
communications  really  a  confirmatory  point.  He  says : 
“I  should  have  expected  knowledge  of  a  future  world 
to  come,  if  at  all,  thru  some  use  made  by  disembodied 
spirits  of  living  organisms/’1  And  to  those  who  can¬ 
not  see  why  there  need  to  be  mediums.  Dr.  Minot  J. 
Savage  asks  a  question  which  impresses  me  as  at  the 
same  time  an  excellent  answer :  “People  ask  me  again 
and  again — and  I  am  answering  these  questions  as  tho 
I  believed — if  the  people  in  the  other  world,  my  friends 
in  the  other  world,  can  communicate  with  anybody, 
why  don’t  they  come  directly  to  me?  Why  must  they 
go  to  a  psychic,  a  stranger,  somebody  about  whom  I 
know  nothing? 

“In  the  first  place,  I  tell  you  frankly  I  do  not  know 
anything  about  it.  Pmt  I  have  a  theory  which  seems 
to  me  a  very  reasonable  one.  Let  me  ask  a  counter 
question.  If  electricity  will  run  along  a  wire — I  am 
using  the  old  theory  that  electricity  is  a  fluid,  but  I 
do  not  know  what  it  is,  and  do  not  know  of  any 
one  who  does — if  electricity  can  convey  a  message 
from  Chicagt)  to  New  York  over  a  wire,  why  cannot 
it  convey  it  over  a  board  fence  ?  I  do  not  know ;  and 
there  is  nobody  in  the  world  who  does  know.” 

We  even  have  examples  of  cases  where  discarnate 
spirits  have  tried  hard  to  write  or  speak  directly,  with¬ 
out  making  use  of  some  human  body  as  a  medium,  but 
have  failed.  Sir  W.  Crookes  gives  a  very  striking 
case  of  this:  “My  second  instance  [of  direct  writing] 
may  be  considered  the  record  of  a  failure.  ‘A  good 


'Myers  in  the  National  Review  for  1898,  p.  232. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


263 


failure  often  teaches  more  than  the  most  successful 
experiment.’  It  took  place  in  the  light,  in  my  own 
room,  with  only  a  few  private  friends  and  Mr.  Home 
present.  Several  circumstances,  to  which  I  need  not 
further  allude,  had  shown  that  the  power  that  evening 
was  strong.  I  therefore  expressed  a  wish  to  witness 
the  actual  production  of  a  written  message  such  as 
I  had  heard  described  a  short  time  before  by  a  friend. 
Immediately  an  alphabetic  communication  was  made  as 
follows:  ‘We  will  try.’  A  pencil  and  some  sheets  of 
paper  had  been  lying  on  the  center  of  the  table ;  pres¬ 
ently  the  pencil  rose  up  on  its  point,  and  after  advan¬ 
cing  by  hesitating  jerks  to  the  paper,  fell  down.  It 
then  rose,  and  again  fell.  A  third  time  it  tried,  but 
with  no  better  result.  After  three  unsuccessful  at¬ 
tempts  a  small  wooden  lath,  which  was  lying  near,  upon 
the  table,  slid  toward  the  pencil  and  rose  a  few  inches 
from  the  table;  the  pencil  rose  again,  and  propping 
itself  against  the  lath,  the  two  together  made  an  effort 
to  mark  the  paper.  It  fell,  and  then  a  joint  effort  was 
again  made.  After  a  third  trial  the  lath  gave  it  up 
and  moved  back  to  its  place,  the  pencil  lay  as  it  fell 
across  the  paper,  and  an  alphabetic  message  told  us, 
‘We  have  tried  to  do  as  you  asked,  but  our  power  is 
exhausted.’  ”* 

But  having  assumed  that  the  spirits  will  communi¬ 
cate  thru  some  human  body,  what  determines  whose 
they  shall  use?  Why  do  they  use  some  “medium’s”? 
Why  not  yours  or  mine,  if  you  or  I  are  the  ones  they 
wish  to  communicate  with? 

And  here,  again,  the  spiritualist’s  answer  is  simple, 


’Crookes :  Notes.  Quar.  Jour,  of  Sci.,  Jan.,  1874.,  PP-  89-90. 


264 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


and  sounds  plausible.  The  supplanting  of  a  person’s 
own  spirit  by  the  exterior  spirit  of  a  deceased  person 
is,  he  says,  a  very  delicate  operation ;  but  few  persons 
are  psychically  able  to  allow  the  use  of  their  body  to 
these  spiritual  “controls.”  Certain  conditions,  certain 
abilities,  a  certain  training,  are  prerequisite ;  and  these 
you  and  I  may  not  happen  to>  possess. 

And  we  have  some  clue,  too,  as  to  what  these  pre¬ 
requisites  are.  We  have  already  seen  that  one  part 
of  our  personality,  the  subliminal  part,  seems  able  to 
practice  certain  powers  of  telepathy  and  clairvoyance 
quite  exceeding  our  normal  human  experience.  These 
are  powers,  too,  which  racial  tradition  and  popular  be¬ 
lief  have  attributed  to  beings  of  a  higher  order  of  ex¬ 
istence,  and  particularly  to  the  “spirits”  of  the  dead. 

These  unusual  powers  of  the  subliminal  self  are  de¬ 
veloped  in  comparatively  few  persons,  and  these  chosen 
apparently  at  random  from  the  great  mass  of  human 
beings.  In  other  words — and  this  is  the  gist  of  all 
“mediumship” — but  a  few  persons  are  able  to  meet 
the  deceased  “spirits”  on  a  common  ground,  on  a  com¬ 
mon  basis  of  subliminal  ability;  only  a  few,  that  is, 
are  “sensitive”  to  communications  from  the  other 
world.  But  is  it  not  an  assumption,  you  may  ask,  to 
assert  that  there  is  any  connection  between  telepathy 
and  sensitiveness  to  spirit  communications  ?  It  is ;  but 
there  are  several  facts  that  seem  to  support  it.  Tel¬ 
epathy,  for  instance,  seems  to  occur  only  in  a  momen¬ 
tary  or  partial  trance,  or  at  least  when  the  subliminal 
self  is  wholly  or  partly  in  control  of  the  body.  Just 
so  spirit  messages  are  received  (except  very  rarely) 
when  the  body  is  in  a  whole  or  partial  state  of  trance. 

When  we  say,  therefore,  that  the  subliminal  self  is 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


265 


in  very  close  connection,  or  working  harmony,  with 
the  discarnate  spirit,  we  shall  probably  be  not  far 
wrong.  Myers  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  “Considering  .  .  . 
the  evidence  which  shows  that  that  portion  of  the  per¬ 
sonality  which  exercises  these  powers  during  our  earth¬ 
ly  existence  does  actually  continue  to  exercise  them 
after  our  bodily  decay,  we  shall  recognize  a  relation — 
obscure  but  indisputable — between  the  subliminal  and 
the  surviving  self.”1 

But  do  not  ask  me  why  the  spirit  is  not  able  to  write 
without  using  a  bodily  instrument.  I  do  not  know ; 
no  man  on  earth  knows.  As  Mr.  Myers  well  says,  it  is 
our  duty  not  to  argue  or  complain  why  mediums  can, 
or  why  you  and  I  cannot,  do  it,  but  to  “search  for  and 
train  such  other  favored  individuals  as  already  show 
this  form  of  capacity  .  .  .  always  latent,  perhaps,  and 
now  gradually  emergent  in  the  human  race.”  You 
have  no  more  right  to  ask  why  a  discarnate  spirit  must 
transmit  its  message  thru  a  medium  than  to  ask  why 
you  or  I  do  not  happen  to  be  able*  to  practice  telepathy 
or  see  clairvoyantly. 

We  may  premise  at  the  very  beginning,  then,  that 
the  task  of  our  discarnate  spirits  from  the  other  world, 
even  if  they  were  desirous  of  communicating,  would 
not  be  an  easy  one.  We  find  that  we  would  have  to 
express  ourselves  thru  some  human  body,  or  not  at  all ; 
and,  alas!  we  would  find,  too,  that  there  are  in  all  the 
world  apparently  few  persons  who  have  the  power  to 
enter  into  communication  with  us.  So  we  would 
search  till  our  discarnate  spirit,  as  Frederic  Myers 
says  in  a  very  striking  passage,  “seeking  ...  for  some 

’Myers:  Human  Personality,  p.  168. 


266 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


open  avenue,  discerns  something  which  corresponds 
...  to  a  light — a  glimmer  of  translucency  in  the  con¬ 
fused  darkness  of  our  material  world.  This  ‘light’ 
indicates  a  sensitive — a  human  organism  so  constituted 
that  a  spirit  can  temporarily  inform  or  control  it,  not 
necessarily  interrupting  the  stream  of  the  sensitive’s 
ordinary  consciousness ;  perhaps  using  a  hand  only,  or 
perhaps,  as  in  Mrs.  Piper’s  case,  using  voice  as  well 
as  hand,  and  occupying  all  the  sensitive’s  channels  of 
self-manifestation.”1 

“But  all  this  amounts  to  nothing,”  you  may  inter¬ 
rupt  impatiently ;  “it  is  all,  as  you  yourself  have  con¬ 
fessed,  pure  assumption.  I  can  just  as  well  assume 
something  entirely  different;  and  can  you  then  find 
flaws  in  my  assumption?” 

Yes;  you  will  have  no  shadow  of  proof  to  support 
an  assumption  utterly  and  thruout  different  from  mine. 
I  have  made  a  series  of  related  assumptions ;  a  little 
later  we  shall  see  how  remarkably  closely  the  facts 
seem — mind  you,  I  say  seem — to  bear  them  out. 

The  Phenomena  of  “Automatism  ” 

We  soon  find,  however,  that  tho  an  overwhelming 
proportion  of  alleged  messages  from  the  spirit  world 
are  transmitted  thru  mediums,  they  come  in  various 
ways,  with  some  of  which  the  medium  may  seem  to 
have  little  to  do. 

In  the  second  article  of  the  series  we  discussed  at 
some  length  the  “physical  phenomena”  of  mediumship. 
We  saw  that  rappings,  table-tipping,  etc.,  are  claimed 
by  the  spiritualist  to  be  evidence  of  the  existence  of 


*Myers :  Human  Personality,  p.  335. 


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I.  A  Typical  Example  of  “Spirit  Writing” 

This  is  the  medium’s  normal  handwriting.  (Compare  this  with  the  plates 
facing  pages  276  and  286). 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


267 


spirits ;  and  we  stated  his  reason — or  one  of  his  rea¬ 
sons — for  making  that  claim,  namely,  that  the  phenom¬ 
ena  seemed  to  him  to  be  too  remarkable  to  admit  of 
any  “natural”  explanation.  And  I  have  shown,  too, 
that  this  claim  is  considered  by  many  of  those  scientists 
who  have  really  investigated  the  phenomena  to  be 
unwarranted.  They  admit  the  occurrence  of  genuine 
rappings  and  table-tippings,  but  assert,  nevertheless, 
that  these  phenomena  are  explicable  without  any 
“spirit”  intervention.  The  subliminal  self,  they  say, 
may  be  able  and  probably  does  in  rare  instances  exert 
genuine  powers  of  telepathy,  telekinesis  and  clairvoy¬ 
ance.  “Yes,  we  admit  now  your  wonderful  phenom¬ 
ena,”  they  continue,  “but  we  can  explain  them  all  with¬ 
out  any  spiritual  help;  you  must  bring  forward  some 
better  reason  than  that  to  make  your  ‘spirit’  hypothesis 
scientifically  tenable.” 

And  the  spiritualist  thereupon  brings  forward  his 
second  reason,  a  reason  that  we  have  hardly  heretofore 
mentioned,  the  fact  that  table-tipping,  rapping,  and,  in 
fact,  all  the  physical  phenomena  of  spiritualism,  are 
occasionally  a  means  of  transmitting  messages ;  and 
the  further  fact  that  these  messages  are  of  such  a  na¬ 
ture  that  they  could  come  only  from  another  world. 

This,  as  you  can  readily  see,  is  a  very  important 
fact.  It  is  surprising  enough  for  a  table  to  float  up 
into  the  air  of  its  own  accord  ;  but  it  is  more  surprising 
if,  by  some  code  arranged  with  it,  it  raps  out  an  intel¬ 
ligent  sentence;  and  it  is  even  more  astonishing  if  this 
sentence  is  a  bit  of  information,  afterward  found  to 
be  entirely  true,  but  at  the  moment  of  its  delivery  un¬ 
known  and  unsuspected  by  any  person  in  the  room. 


268 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


This,  we  must  admit,  is  a  very  strong  argument  for 
spiritualism.  Is  any  other  hypothesis  possible  now? 

I  have  purposely,  heretofore,  omitted  any  discussion 
of  the  message-transmitting  phase  of  all  these  phe¬ 
nomena.  The  alleged  spiritualist  message  is  occasion¬ 
ally  transmitted  by  rappings,  by  table-tippings,  by 
slate-writing,  by  flashes  of  light,  etc.,  but  it  is  seen  in  its 
fullest  development,  is  most  often  given,  and  has  been 
for  years  most  carefully  studied,  thru  automatisms ; 
that  is,  thru  direct  writing  and  speaking  by  a  medium. 
Now,  the  arguments  for  and  against  the  spiritualistic 
origin  of  these  messages  are  identical,  whether  they 
come  thru  a  table  controlled  by  a  medium,  or  thru  her 
own  hand.  If  we  work  out  the  problem  in  one  case 
we  do  it  in  all.  If  we  can  prove  one  is  due  to  spirits, 
we  have  proved  the  others  are.  It  has,  therefore, 
seemed  wise  to  postpone  this  final  problem,  the  authen¬ 
ticity  of  spirit  messages,  until  we  have  described  au¬ 
tomatisms,  the  most  typical  and  perfectly  developed  of 
all  spiritual  phenomena.  I  have,  therefore,  described 
and  discussed  all  the  previous  phenomena  only  in  their 
independent  aspects ;  but  the  reader  will  now  under¬ 
stand  that  everything  said  in  the  future  regarding  mes¬ 
sages  received  by  direct  writing  applies  equally  well 
to  those  received  by  table-tipping,  etc. 

Various  Phases  of  Motor  Automatism 

In  the  light  trance  which  is  the  typical  condition  for 
communication  the  medium  may  either  speak  or  write 
the  messages  which  come  to  her.  In  the  more  com¬ 
mon  examples  she  merely  repeats  messages  given  her 
by  persons  “on  the  other  side.”  In  its  most  developt 
form,  however — that  is,  motor  automatism  (as  in  Mrs. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


269 


Piper’s  case) — the  spirit  claims  to  take  entire  control 
of  the  medium’s  body  (in  other  words,  to  be  an  exam¬ 
ple  of  “possession,”  like  the  “Watseka  Wonder”  al¬ 
ready  noticed).  The  medium  then  speaks,  not  in  her 
own  voice,  but  in  the  voice — so  far  as  she  can  do  so — 
of  the  alleged  spirit ;  her  handwriting  is  not  her  own, 
but  changes  with  that  of  each  spirit  who  uses  her  body ; 
her  gestures  are  not  her  normal  ones,  but  may  be 
characteristic  of  the  discarnate  spirit  who  claims  to 
be  present.  In  other  words,  the  medium  speaks  and 
acts  in  every  way  as  the  spirit  who  claims  to  be  in 
control  of  her  body  would  do.  “The  influence  of  the 
subject’s  mind,”  says  Dr.  Hyslop,  “conscious  and  un¬ 
conscious,  is  completely  suppressed,  and  the  nervous 
system  becomes  a  delicate  machine  for  the  intromission 
of  messages  from  without,  atfecting  it  as  an  automatic 
piece  of  machinery.”1 

Sometimes  the  personalities  claiming  to  have  con¬ 
trol  are  of  very  different  kinds  of  people.  Mile.  Smith, 
the  famous  medium  observed  by  Professor  Flournoy, 
and  described  at  length  in  his  From  India  to  the  Planet 
Mars,  not  content  with  having  among  her  numerous 
“controls”  Cagliostro,  the  magician  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  an  Indian  princess,  imported,  in  later 
phases  of  her  mediumship,  spirits  from  Mars !  In  his 
very  interesting  book,  Professor  Flournoy  has  many 
samples  of  the  Martian  writing  and  sketches  of  Mar¬ 
tian  landscapes  drawn  by  these  Martian  spirits,  who 
claimed  to  be  using  Mile.  Smith’s  fingers. 

Frederic  Myers  defines  most  clearly  this  phenomena 


’Hyslop:  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  p.  344. 


270 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


of  possession,  or  motor  automatism.  “In  possession 
the  automatist's  [the  medium’s]  own  personality  does 
for  the  time  altogether  disappear,  while  there  is  a 
more  or  less  complete  substitution  of  personality ;  writ¬ 
ing  or  speech  being  given  by  a  spirit  thru  the  entranced 
organism.  .  .  .These  phenomena  of  possession  are  now 
the  most  amply  attested,  as  well  as  intrinsically  the 
most  advanced,  in  our  whole  repertory.1 

“The  claim,  then,  is  that  the  automatist,  in  the  first 
place,  falls  into  a  trance,  during  which  his  spirit  par¬ 
tially  ‘quits  his  body’ ;  enters  at  any  rate  into  a  state 
in  which  the  spiritual  world  is  more  or  less  open  to  its 
perception ;  and  in  which,  also — and  this  is  the  novelty 
— it  so  far  ceases  to  occupy  the  organism  as  to  leave 
room  for  an  invading  spirit  to  use  it  in  somewhat  the 
same  fashion  as  its  owner  is  accustomed  to  use  it. 

“The  brain  being  thus  left  temporarily  and  partially 
uncontrolled,  a  disembodied  spirit  sometimes,  but  not 
always,  succeeds  in  occupying  it ;  and  occupies  it  with 
varying  degrees  of  control.  .  .  . 

“The  controlling  spirit  proves  his  identity  mainly 
by  reproducing,  in  speech  or  writing,  facts  which  be¬ 
long  to  his  memory  and  not  to  the  automatist’s  mem¬ 
ory.  He  may  also  give  evidence  of  supernormal  per¬ 
ception  of  other  kinds. 

“His  manifestation  may  differ  very  considerably 
from  the  automatist’s  normal  personality  .  .  .  the 
spirit  selects  what  parts  of  the  brain  machinery  he  will 
use,  but  he  cannot  get  out  of  that  machinery  more 
than  it  is  constructed  to  perform.  The  spirit  can,  in¬ 
deed,  produce  facts  and  names  unknown  to  the  autom- 


Ttalics  are  mine. 


'ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


271 


atist;  but  they  must  be,  as  a  rule,  such  facts  and 
names  as  the  automatist  could  easily  have  repeated, 
had  they  been  known  to  him ;  not,  for  instance,  math¬ 
ematical  formulas  or  Chinese  sentences,  if  the  autom¬ 
atist  is  ignorant  of  mathematics  or  of  Chinese.”1 

Sometimes  two  spirits,  as  Myers  suggests,  struggle 
for  control  of  the  medium’s  body ;  sometimes  two  or 
more  control  different  parts  of  the  medium’s  body  at 
the  same  time;  sometimes  a  second  one  comes  and 
pushes  the  first  one  out,  and  the  first  one  slinks  hur¬ 
riedly  away — or  at  least  these  are  the  impressions  given 
to  those  present.  Questions  are  asked  the  spirit  and 
answered  directly  in  speech  or  writing.  When  she 
awakes  from  the  trance  she  generally,  but  not  always, 
remembers  absolutely  nothing  of  all  that  has  taken 
place.  “After  a  time,”  says  Mr.  Myers,  “the  control 
gives  way,  and  the  automatist’s  spirit  returns.  The 
automatist,  awaking,  may  or  may  not  remember  his 
experiences  in  the  spiritual  world  during  the  trance. 
In  some  cases  (Swedenborg)  there  is  this  memory  of 
the  spiritual  world,  but  no  possession  of  the  organism 
by  an  external  spirit.  In  others  (Cahagnet’s  subject) 
there  is  utterance  during  the  trance  as  to  what  is  being 
discerned  by  the  automatist,  yet  no  memory  thereof  on 
waking.  In  others  (Mrs.  Piper)  there  is  neither  ut¬ 
terance  as  a  rule,  or  at  least  no  prolonged  utterance, 
by  the  automatist’s  own  spirit,  nor  subsequent  mem¬ 
ory  ;  but  there  is  writing  or  utterance  during  the  trance 
by  controlling  spirits.”* 

This,  then,  is  the  phenomena  of  automatism  as  de¬ 
scribed  by  a  spiritualist ;  let  us  examine  for  ourselves. 

‘Myers:  Human  Personality,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  190-91. 

-Ibid.,  p.  191. 


m 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Rules  for  Conducting  Mediumistic  Experiments 

Dr.  Hyslop  lays  down  the  most  important  rules  for 
the  conduct  of  mediumistic  experiments,  rules  which 
he  says  must  be  observed  before  we  have  the  slightest 
right  to  consider  the  possibility  of  a  supernormal 
source  for  the  communications : 

(1)  “In  various  ways  the  extent  of  the  medium’s 
honesty  must  be  attested.  This  is  not  because  any 
scientific  results  should  depend  upon  honesty,  but  be¬ 
cause  the  belief  or  proof  of  it  will  remove  the  first 
objection  of  the  skeptic. 

(2)  “The  statements,  testimony,  beliefs  and  opinions 
of  the  medium  will  count  for  nothing  in  scientific  proof 
of  the  supernormal. 

(3)  “The  medium  should  not  know  the  sitter  or 
person  coming  at  first  to  experiment.  This  precaution 
shuts  out  a  certain  type  of  fraud  as  impossible.  .  .  . 

(4)  “Adequate  allowance,  whether  in  or  out  of  the 
trance,  must  be  made  for  ‘suggestion,’  or  conscious  or 
unconscious  hints  from  the  sitter,  in  which  informa¬ 
tion  may  be  conveyed  to  the  medium. 

(5)  “As  perfect  a  record  as  possible  should  be  made 
and  kept  of  all  that  is  said  and  done  by  the  medium 
and  experimenter. 

(6)  “The  quality  of  the  facts  or  evidence  in  favor 
of  the  supernormal  must  be  such  as  excludes  explana¬ 
tion  by  chance  coincidences,  guessing,  suggestion,  sec¬ 
ondary  personality,  and  fraud  of  all  kinds;  that  is, 
they  should  take  the  nature  of  tests.  .  .  . 

(7)  “In  applying  the  spiritualistic  hypothesis  to  the 
phenomena  we  must  be  careful  to  observe  that  the  facts 
have  a  definite  bearing  upon  the  question  of  the  per- 


273 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

sonal  identity  of  deceased  persons  not  known  to  the 
medium.”  [That  is,  those  “spirits”  who  claim  to  be 
communicating,  themselves  unknown  to  the  medium, 
must,  be  able  to  prove  by  their  communications  that 
they  are  whom  they  claim  to  be.  This  proving  of  per¬ 
sonal  identity,  of  which  more  will  be  said  later,  is  a 
thing  upon  which  the  spiritualist  rightly  lays-  great 
stress.] 

(8)  If  the  medium  remains  normally  conscious; 
that  is,  does  not  go  into  a  trance  state,  “proper  allow¬ 
ance  must  be  made”  for  the  possible  influence  of  the 
medium’s  own.  mental  and  physical  condition. 

(9)  “When  a  trance  is  secured  zve  have  to  exclude 
all  phenomena  that  can  be  explained  by  ‘secondary 
personality,’  or  unconscious  mental  action.  Not  all 
that  occurs  in  a'  trance,  if  any  of  it,  is  attributable  to 
supernormal  sources.  We  must  be  able  to  distinguish 
between  what  comes  from  without  the  subject  and. 
what  is  consciously  and  unconsciously  produced.” 

Here  is  the  crux  of  the  whole  spiritistic  problem : 
if  part  of  the  phenomena  occurring  in  the  trance  state 
can  be  ascribed  to  the  subliminal  self  (the  “secondary 
personality,”  of  Dr.  Hyslop),  can  it  not  all  be  so  ac¬ 
counted  for,  thus  dropping  altogether  the  hypothesis 
of  spirits?  This  problem  must  be  considered  at  more 
detail  later. 


Typical  Mediumistic  Phenomena 

I  am  first  going  to  quote  a  mediumistic  experience 
of  Dr.  Funk,  because  in  subject  matter  and  a  con¬ 
fusing  combination  of  definiteness  and  indefiniteness 
it  is  typical. 


274? 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“Shortly  after  this  experience  of  mine  with  Miss 
B.  (the  medium)  there  was  visiting  in  my  home  in 
Brooklyn  a  niece  of  my  wife’s,  whose  home  was  in 
Toledo,  Ohio.  She  was  a  total  stranger  in  New  York. 
I  will  here  call  her  Miss  M.  Miss  M.  had  had  some 
experience  in  Ohio  in  investigating  psychic  phe¬ 
nomena.  ...  As  she  was  a  stranger  in  the  city,  I 
thought  it  well  to  have  her  make  a  test  visit  to  Miss 
B.,  which  she  did  in.  November,  1903.  .  .  . 

“Miss  M.  is  a  rapid  stenographer,  and  made  notes 
on  the  back  of  the  envelopes  of  what  the  medium  said 
about  each.  In  her  report  to  me  she  said  that 

“  ‘Miss  B.  did  not  at  any  time  ‘fish’  for  information, 
as  is  usual  with  many  mediums,  and  I  gave  her  not  the 
slightest  clew  about  myself,  my  own  name,  home,  or 
history,  or  about  the  contents  of  any  of  the  envelopes ; 
nor  did  she  ask  a  single  question  about  any  until  after 
she  had  given  what  information  she  could.’ 

“Miss  M.  took  with  her  a  number  of  sealed  envel¬ 
opes.  Among  these  were'  three  prepared  by  myself. 
These  I  got  ready  in  my  library,  without  the  slightest 
intimation  being  given  to  Miss  M.  or  to  any  one  else 
as  to  their  contents. 

“Envelope  one  contained  a  medical  thesis  written 
by  the  father  of  Miss  M.,  who  was  a  physician.  It 
was  nearly  forty  years  old.  The  paper  was  written,  in 
the  opinion  of  Miss  M.,  when  her  father  was  attending 
medical  lectures  at  Willoughby  College  in  Ohio.  The 
medium,  after  touching  the  envelope,  said : 

“  ‘I  hear  the.  word  “Toledo.”  I  get  the  letters  “F” 
and  “W.”  I  do  not  know  what  these  letters  mean. 
I  also  get  the  name  “Ella.”  This  Ella  is  your  oldest 
sister.  There  are  three  of  you..  I  see  two  brothers- 


ARE.  THE  DEAD.  ALIVE? 


275 


in-law.  You  are  not  married.  Your  oldest  sister  has 
six  children.  You  are  not  living  with  her,  but  you 
have  been  together  during  the  summer.  Your  oldest 
sister  does  not  live  in  Toledo,  but  toward  Cincinnati. 
Your  father  says,  “Tell  Ella  she  has  not  heart  trouble ; 
it  is  only  nervousness.”  I  hear  “Tom.”  Your  sister 
has  a  son  by  that  name.”  ’ 

“Miss  M.  tells  me  that  ‘This  reading  by  the  medium 
was  correct  in  every  point.  She  did  not  fumble,  half 
utter  a  name  and  then  change  it.  Each  name  was 
given  correctly  at  first.  The  letters  “F”  and  “W”  were 
correct,  if  F  referred  to  the  surname  of  my  father, 
and  W  if  it  referred  to  the  name  of  the  college  for 
which  this  thesis  was  prepared.’  The  medium  also 
gave  an  accurate  detailed  description  of  the  cemetery 
and  grave  where  Miss  M.’s  father  and  mother  are  bur¬ 
ied.  She  said: 

“  ‘Your  father  says  you  need  not  worry  so  much 
about  the  condition  of  the  grave;  that  that  does  not 
signify.  Your  father  also  says,  “I  knew  at  11.30  on 
Thursday  night  that  I  could  not  get  well.”  ’ 

“Miss  M.  informs  me  that  she  has  a  hired  man  to 
take  care  of  the  graves,  and  that  she  has  been  con¬ 
cerned  because  the  burial  plot  has  been  permitted  to 
run  down.  Her  sister  Ella  had  expressed  concern 
about  her  heart ;  naturally  so,  because  both  her  father 
and  her  mother  had  died  of  heart  trouble.  Miss  M. 
also  says,  ‘My  father  died  on  March  7,  1890;  the  night 
before  his  death  he  had  a  very  bad  turn,  and  we  felt 
that  he  had  given  up  all  expectation  of  getting  well. 
He  died  about  two  hours  afterward.’  After  getting 
this  report  from  Miss  M.,  I  looked  in  a  perpetual  cal¬ 
endar,  and  found  that  March  7  fell  on  Friday.  Miss 


276 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


M.  informs  me  that  her  father  died  at  1.30  a.m.  Hence 
the  Thursday  night  in  -the  message  is  correct.”1 

The  second  example  of  automatism  is  interesting  be¬ 
cause  it  shows  how  incongruous  some  of  the  com¬ 
municators  are  with  the  medium  and  those  present  with 
her.  The  receipt  of  the  communication  taken  from 
the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
is  thus  described,  “Miss  A.,”  the  medium,  writing  au¬ 
tomatically  while  entranced:  “On  June  27,  1891,  Miss 
A.  took  pencil  in  hand.  ■  The  following  notes  were 
made  directly  after  the  sitting,  and  the  automatic  script 
is  in  my  hands  (Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers).2  The  hand¬ 
writing  of  the  soi-disant  Jack  Creasy  is  barely  legible 
and  of  an  uneducated  type. 

[“Much  scribbling.  At  last,  very  illegibly,  and  many 
times,  was  written]  ‘Jack.’ 

(‘Jack  who?)  (Miss  A.  said,  ‘I  dare  say  Jack  the 
Ripper,  or  some  one  of  that  kind.’) 

Jack  Creasy. 

(What  do  you  want?) 

Help  pore  Mary. 

(Where  did  you  live?) 

[Very  illegible.]  Fillers  [or]  Tillers  Buildings. 

(Where?) 

Greenwich. 

“(Are  you  in  the  flesh?) 


xFunk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  pp.  227-9. 

2As  generally  in  descriptions  of  mediumistic  communica¬ 
tions,  the  matter  here  given  in  parentheses  (  )  is  the  questions 
of  those  interrogating  the  medium ;  that  outside  the  parenthe¬ 
ses  is  the  automatic  writing  of  the  medium.  Various  explana¬ 
tory  notes  are  put  in  brackets  [  1. 


II.  A  Typical  Example  of  “Spirit  Writing” 

Automatic  communication,  purporting  to  come  from  Dr.  Hyslop’s 
fattier,  written  by  the  medium,  Mrs.  Smead.  in  successive  trances. 
(Reproduced  from  Hyslop’s  “Preliminary  Report  on  the  Trance  Phe¬ 
nomena  of  Mrs.  Smead  ")  Compare  this  with  the  plates  facing  pages 
266  and  286. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


277 


No — flesh  all  burnt.  [Then  a  rude  drawing,  not  rec¬ 
ognizable.] 

(Were  you  burnt?) 

Yes — piche  kitl. 

(In  Fillers  Buildings?) 

In  Blackwell  Road. 

(When?) 

Long — perhaps  twenty  month. 

(Was  it  an  accident?) 

Awful.  Mister  Lennard  put  us  to  shift  the  mixter ; 
Bob  Heal  put  the  light  for  me  the  pitch  vat  cort. 
“(What  works?) 

Tar. 

(At  Greenwich?) 

Yes,  Blackwell  Rode. 

(What  kind  of  works?) 

Abot. 

(Do  you  mean  Abbot’s  works?) 

Abots — yes — yes — Blackwell. 

(Were  many  killed?) 

I  know  nothin’. 

(What  help  do  you  want  for  Mary?) 

Don’t  know  nothin’ — find  her — and  help  her — ask 
after  pore  Jack  Creasy’s  Mary. 

(Is  she  at  Greenwich?  Can  you  give  her  address?) 
Can’t  tell — can’t  see — she  was  there. 

(Where?) 

Fullur  (or  Fillers)  Buildings.  Bless  you. 

[No  further  writing  occurred.”] 

It  is,  perhaps,  needless  to  say  that  none  of  those  pres¬ 
ent  knew  of  any  “Jack  Creasy,”  or  had  ever  heard  of 
such  an  accident  as  the  one  described.  “Investigation 
proved,  however,  that  a  Jack  Creasy  had  been  burnt 


278 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


by  an  explosion  of  a  pitch  vat,  and  died  from  the  effects 
of  it.  The  accident  took  place  in  the  tar-distilling 
works  of  Forbes,  Abbot  &  Lennard,  at  Greenwich. 
The  works  were  bounded  on  one  side  by  Blackwell 
Lane.  Apparently  the  name  Fuller  or  Fillers  is  a 
mistake  for  Forbes,  though  we  have  no  evidence  of 
this.  No  such  person  as  Bob  Heal  could  be  found, 
and  the  wife  of  Jack  Creasy  was  not  named  Mary. 
The  death  of  Jack  Creasy  occurred  two  years  previous¬ 
ly,  and  was  mentioned  with  the  accident  in  the  local 
papers,  which  it  is  probable  that  Miss  A.  never  saw. 
Dr.  Hyslop,  in  quoting  the  case,  remarks  that  it  is 
mainly  “interesting  for  the  apparent  mental  confusion 
in  the  ‘communication.’ 1,1 

A  unique  case,  showing  how,  as  often,  the  communi¬ 
cating  spirit  claims  to  have,  and  apparently  does  have, 
a  knowledge  above  the  normal,  is  that  of  Dr.  “X,” 
who  was  in  frequent  consultation  with  the  “spirit”  of  a 
Dr.  “Z”  on  the  “other  side.” 

“Under  other  circumstances  I  have  myself  consulted 
Dr.  Z.  as  to  patients  under  my  professional  care.  On 
each  occasion  he  has  given  a  precise  diagnosis  and  has 
indicated  a  treatment,  consisting  mainly  of  dosimetric 
granules,  sometimes  associated  with  other  treatment. 
These  facts  have  been  repeated  many  times,  and  I  owe 
a  great  gratitude  to  Dr.  Z.  for  the  advice  which  he 
has  given  me.  His  prescriptions  were  always  rational ; 
and  when  I  showed  fear  as  to  certain  doses  which  ap¬ 
peared  to  me  too  large,  he  took  pains  to  reassure  me, 
but  stuck  to  his  prescriptions.  I  have  never  had  to 
repent  following  the  advice  of  my  eminent  colleague 


’Quoted  in  Hyslop :  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  p.  366. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


279 


in  the  other  world ;  and  I  am  bound  to  state  that  every 
time  that  a  medical  question  has  been  submitted  to  him 
the  replies  and  advice  of  Dr.  Z.  have  been  of  astonish¬ 
ing  clearness  and  precision.”1 

Apparently  Supernormal  Knowledge  Displayed  in  Medium- 
istic  Communications 

Here  is  a  partial  report  of  a  seance  held  by  Dr. 
Hyslop  with  a  medium,  Miss  X.,  not  a  professional, 
“who  took  no  pay  for  what  she  did,  sat  only  for  a  few 
friends  occasionally  .  .  .  and  had  no  theories  of  her 
powers.” 

Dr.  Hyslop,  who  had  had  communications  from  what 
he  had  reason  to  believe  to  be  the  spirit  of  his  father, 
had  arranged  with  the  latter  a  test  sentence  (in  a  for¬ 
eign  language)  known  only  to  himself  and  Dr.  Hodg¬ 
son,  by  which  at  future  sittings  with  other  mediums 
the  elder  Hyslop  might  at  once  prove  his  identity. 
Dr.  Hyslop  was  unknown  to  the  medium,  and  was  in¬ 
troduced  to  her  by  those  arranging  the  sitting  as  “Rob¬ 
ert  Brown,  of  Nebraska.” 

“Miss  X.  .  .  .  did  not  go  into  a  trance.  The  first 
words  written  were,  ‘Why,  James.’  Astonished  at  the 
promptness  with  which  this  correct  hit  at  my  name  oc¬ 
curred,  I  asked,  ‘Who  says  that  ?’  and  received  the  two 
Christian  names  and  initial  of  the  surname  of  my  wife, 
who  had  died  eight  months  before,  the  middle  Chris¬ 
tian  name  being  very  unusual.  This  was  given  with  a 
little  difficulty  and  confusion.  ...  [A  little  later] 
followed  this  passage: 

“  ‘Your  name  is  not  Robert.  It  is  James.  Isn’t  it 


’Quoted  in  Hyslop :  Enigmas  of  Psychical  Research,  p.  358. 


280 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


James?  Well,  wait  a  little.  We  don’t  want  too  much 
flutter  here.’ 

“  ‘(You  know  why  I  want  full  details.)  Ah,  but  you 
have  had  these,  now  let  me  talk.  Don’t  ask  for  more 
proof.  (I  have  not  had  them  from  you.)  I  doubt 
if  I  can  give  you  the  one  thing  you  most  desire  this 
moment.  (What  do  I  desire  this  moment?)  [I  was 
not  conscious  of  any  particular  desire  at  the  time.  I 
was  certainly  not  thinking  of  what  was  referred  to  in 
the  reply.]  The  sign,  well,  not  exactly  password,  but 
the  test.  If  you  will  keep  motionless  I  can  be  able  to 
give  even  that.’ 

“Here  Miss  X.  remarked  that  she  felt  as  if  she  were 
going  to  sleep,  and  that  she  was  afraid  she  might  go 
into  some  state  which  she  did  not  like.  She  went  to 
the  window  to  throw  off  the  tendency,  and  resumed 
the  writing  on  her  return.  .  .  .  The  reference  to  the 
‘sign,  well,  not  exactly  password,  but  the  test,’  is  sur¬ 
prisingly  accurate.  It  is  not  a  passzyorcf,  but  a  pass- 
sentence,  and  hence  a  ‘sign’  or  ‘test.’  The  apparent 
tendency  of  Miss  X.  here  to  go  into  a  trance  in  this 
connection  is  a  most  suggestive  incident,  as  that  is  the 
condition  in  which  I  would  most  naturally  expect  the 
pass-sentence  to  be  given.  .  .  .  Miss  X.  ...  of  course 
knew  nothing  of  my  expectation  of  a  pass-sentence.”1 
Yet  the  skeptic  will  probably  answer  that  after  all  the 
test  sentence  was  not  given. 

Reserving  till  a  little  later  the  logical  history  of  the 
Piper  case,  I  shall  give  one  example  of  a  seance  held 
by  Dr.  Minot  Savage  with  Mrs.  Piper  before  she  was 
studied  by  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 


’Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  236-8. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


281 


“1  had  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper  years  ago,”  he  says, 
“before  the  society  was  organized,  or  her  name  was 
publicly  known.  On  the  occasion  of  my  first  visit  to 
her  she  was,  I  think,  in  a  little  house  on  Pinckney 
Street,  in  Boston.  At  this  time  she  went  into  a  trance, 
but  talked  instead  of  writing.  The  first  person  who 
claimed  to  be  present  was  my  father.  He  had  died  in 
Maine  at  the  age  of  ninety.  Pie  had  never  lived  in 
Boston,  nor,  indeed,  had  he  visited  there  for  a  great 
many  years,  so  that  there  was  no  possibility  that  Mrs. 
Piper  should  ever  have  seen  him,  and  no  likelihood  of 
her  having  known  anything  about  him.  She  described 
him  at  once  with  accuracy,  pointing  out  certain  pe¬ 
culiarities  which  the  ordinary  observer,  even  if  he  had 
ever  seen  him,  would  not  have  been  likely  to  notice. 
Without  any  question  on  my  part  she  told  me  that  it 
was  my  father,  and  added,  ‘He  calls  you  Judson.’  This, 
tho  a  little  fact,  is  striking  enough  to  call  for  notice. 
Judson  is  my  middle  name.  ...  In  all  my  boyhood  all 
the  members  of  the  family,  except  my  father  and  my 
half-brother,  soon  to  be  referred  to,  had  always  called 
me  Minot.  Father  had  called  me  Judson  thru  my 
boyhood,  as  I  always  supposed,  out  of  a  tender  feeling 
for  the  daughter  who  had  given  me  the  name.  For 
fifteen  or  twenty  years,  however,  before  his  death  he 
had  fallen  into  the  family  way,  and  had  also  called  me 
Minot.  It  struck  me,  then,  as  peculiar  and  worthy  of 
note  that  Mrs.  Piper  should  actually  describe  him,  and, 
among  other  personal  peculiarities  which  she  men¬ 
tioned,  should  have  called  up  this  tiny  fact  from  the 
oblivion  of  the  past. 

“She  went  on  to  say:  ‘Here  is  somebody  else  be¬ 
sides  your  father.  It  is  your  brother — no,  your  half- 


282 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


brother,  and  he  says  his  name  is  John.’  This  John 
was  my  mother’s  boy.  Then  Mrs.  Piper  went  on  to 
describe,  with  somewhat  painful  accuracy,  partly  in 
pantomime  and  partly  by  speech,  the  method  of  his 
death ;  and  she  added :  ‘When  he  was  dying,  how  he 
did  want  to  see  his  mother !’  Now  this  half-brother 
John  had  also  been  in  the  habit  of  calling  me  Judson 
in  the  years  long  past.  It  had  been  a  good  many  years 
since  I  had  seen  him.  He  had  never  lived  in  Boston, 
and  there  is  no  conceivable  way  by  which  Mrs.  Piper 
could  have  known  anything  about  him.  He  was  not 
consciously  in  my  mind,  and  I  was  not  expecting  to 
hear  from  him.  He  had  died  a  year  or  two  before 
this  in  Michigan,  in  precisely  the  way  in  which  the 
medium  had  described  the  facts.  As  to  his  exclamation 
about  his  mother,  it  came  to  me  as  peculiarly  personal 
and  appropriate,  because  he  was  one  of  those  who 
would  be  spoken  of  as  a  ‘mother-boy.’  He  was  pas¬ 
sionately  devoted  to  her.”1 

The  Mediumship  of  William  Stain  ton  Moses 
No  history  of  mediumship  could  profess  complete¬ 
ness  without  some  consideration  of  the  life  of  the 
Rev.  William  Stainton  Moses,  of  whom  mention  has 
already  been  made.  He  was  in  no  sense  a  professional 
medium.  A  man  of  deeply  religious  and  high  moral 
character,  he  considered  the  communications,  which 
he  sincerely  believed  he  received  from  the  other  world, 
solely  in  their  ethical  and  spiritual  significance.  Tho 
on  occasion  exhibiting  physical  phenomena  as  remark¬ 
able  as  that  of  Home,  he  refused  to  attach  any  impor¬ 
tance  to  them,  and  being  naturally  retiring,  gave  lit- 


lQuoted  in  Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite ,  p.  252. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


283 


tie  opportunity  for  outside  investigation.  “He  himself 
regarded  them  as  a  mere  means  to  an  end,  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  view  urged  on  him  by  his  ‘control’ — that 
they  were  intended  as  proofs  of  the  power  and  au¬ 
thority  of  these  latter,  while  the  real  message  lay  in  the 
religious  teaching  imparted  to  him.”1  Frederic  Myers 
has  summarized  excellently  Mr.  Moses’  peculiar  place 
in  the  history  of  mediumship.2  “Here  was  a  man  of 
university  education,  of  manifest  sanity  and  probity, 
who  vouched  to  us  for  a  series  of  phenomena — occur¬ 
ring  to  himself,  and  with  no  doubtful  or  venal  aid — 
which  seemed  at  least  to  prove,  in  confusedly  inter¬ 
mingled  form,  .  .  .  theses  unknown  to  science. 
.  .  .  He  spoke  frankly  and  fully ;  he  showed  his  note¬ 
books  ;  he  referred  us  to  his  friends ;  he  inspired  a  be¬ 
lief  which  was  at  once  sufficient,  and  which  is  still  suffi¬ 
cient,  to  prompt  to  action. 

“My  original  impressions  as  regards  Mr.  Moses  were 
strengthened,”  says  Myers,  “by  the  opportunity  which 
I  had  of  examining  his  unpublished  MSS.  after  his 
death,  on  September  5,  1892.  These  consist  of  thirty- 
one  notebooks — twenty-four  of  automatic  script,  four 
of  records  of  physical  phenomena,  and  three  of  retro¬ 
spect  and  summary.  .  .  . 

“With  the  even  tenor  of  this  straightforward  and 
reputable  life  was  interwoven  a  chain  of  mysteries 
which,  as  I  think,  in  what  way  soever  they  be  explained, 
make  it  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  which  our  cen¬ 
tury  has  seen.  For  its  true  history  lies  in  that  series 
of  physical  manifestations  which  began  in  1872  and 


'Myers:  Human  Personality,  p.  321. 

'Ibid.,  pp.  321-4- 


284 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


lasted  some  eight  years,  and  that  series  of  automatic 
writings  and  trance  utterances  which  began  in  1873, 
received  a  record  for  some  ten  years,  and  did  not,  as 
is  believed,  cease  altogether  until  the  earthly  end  was 
near. 

“These  two  series  were  intimately  connected;  the 
physical  phenomena  being  avowedly  designed  to  give 
authority  to  the  speeches  and  writings  which  professed 
to  emanate  from  the  same  source.  .  .  .  Mr.  Moses  was 
sometimes,  but  not  always,  entranced  while  these  phys¬ 
ical  phenomena  were  occurring.  Sometimes  he  was  en¬ 
tranced,  and  the  trance  utterance  purported  to  be  that 
of  a  discarnate  spirit.  At  other  times,  especially  when 
alone,  he  wrote  automatically,  retaining  his  own  ordi¬ 
nary  consciousness  meanwhile,  and  carrying  on  lengthy 
discussions  with  the  ‘spirit  influence’  controlling  his 
hand  and  answering  his  questions,  etc.  As  a  general 
rule,  the  same  alleged  spirits  both  manifested  them¬ 
selves  by  raps,  etc.,  at  Mr.  Moses’  sittings  with  his 
friends,  and  also  wrote  thru  his  hand  when  he  was 
alone.  .  .  .  When  ‘direct  writing’  was  given  at  the 
seances,  the  handwriting  of  each  alleged  spirit  was 
the  same  as  that  which  the  same  spirit  was  in  the  habit 
of  employing  in  the  automatic  script.  The  claim  to 
individuality  was  thus  in  all  cases  decisively  made. 

“Now,  the  personages  thus  claiming  to  appear  may 
be  divided  roughly  into  three  classes : 

“A. — First,  and  most  important,  are  a  group  of  per¬ 
sons  recently  deceased,  and  sometimes  manifesting 
themselves  at  the  seances  before  their  decease  was 
known  thru  any  ordinary  channel  to  any  of  the  per¬ 
sons  present.  These  spirits,  in  many  instances,  give 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


285 


tests  of  identity,  mentioning  facts  connected  with  their 
earth  lives  which  are  afterward  found  to  be  correct. 

“B. — Next  comes  a  group  of  personages  belonging 
to  generations  more  remote,  and  generally  of  some 
distinction  in  their  day.  Grocyn,  the  friend  of  Eras¬ 
mus,  may  be  taken  as  a  type  of  these.  Many  of  these 
also  contribute  facts  as  a  proof  of  identity,  which  facts 
are  sometimes  more  correct  than  the  conscious  or  ad¬ 
mitted  knowledge  of  any  of  the  sitters  could  supply. 
In  such  cases,  however,  the  difficulty  of  proving  iden¬ 
tity  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  most  of  the  correct 
statements  are  readily  accessible  in  print,  and  may 
conceivably  have  either  been  read,  and  forgotten  by 
Mr.  Moses,  or  have  become  known  to  him  by  some 
kind  of  clairvoyance. 

“C. — A  third  group  consists  of  spirits  who  give  such 
names  as  Rector,  Doctor,  Theophilus,  and,  above  all, 
Imperator.  These,  from  time  to  time,  reveal  the  names 
which  they  assert  to  have  been  theirs  in  earth  life. 
These  concealed  names  are,  for  the  most  part,  both 
more  illustrious  and  more  remote  than  the  names  in 
Class  B.  .  .  . 

“These  automatic  messages  were  almost  wholly  writ¬ 
ten  by  Mr.  Moses’  own  hand,  while  he  was  in  a  normal 
working  state.  The  exceptions  are  of  two  kinds :  ( I ) 
There  is  one  long  passage,  alleged  by  Mr.  Moses  to 
have  been  written  by  himself  while  in  a  state  of  trance. 
(2)  There  are,  here  and  there,  a  few  words  alleged 
to  be  in  ‘direct  writing’ — written,  that  is  to  say,  by 
invisible  hands,  but  in  Mr.  Moses’  presence ;  as  sev¬ 
eral  times  described  in  the  notes  of  seances  where  other 
persons  were  present. 

“Putting  these  exceptional  instances  aside,  we  find 


286 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


that  the  writings  generally  take  the  form  of  a  dialog, 
Mr.  Moses  proposing  a  question  in  his  ordinary,  thick, 
black  handwriting.  An  answer  is  then  generally,  tho 
not  always,  given,  written  also  by  Mr.  Moses,  and 
with  the  same  pen,  but  in  some  one  of  various  scripts 
which  differ  more  or  less  widely  from  his  own.  .  .  . 

“A  prolonged  study  of  the  MS.  books  has  revealed 
nothing  inconsistent  with  this  description.  I  have  my¬ 
self,  of  course,  searched  them  carefully  for  any  sign 
of  confusion  or  alteration,  but  without  finding  any; 
and  I  have  shown  parts  of  them  to  various  friends,  who 
have  seen  no  points  of  suspicion.  It  seems  plain,  more¬ 
over,  that  the  various  entries  were  made  at  or  about 
the  dates  to  which  they  are  ascribed.  They  contain 
constant  references  to  the  seances  which  went  on  con¬ 
currently,  and  whose  dates  are  independently  known; 
and  in  the  later  books,  records  of  some  of  these  seances 
are  interspersed  in  their  due  places  among  other 
matter.  The  MSS.  contain  also  a  number  of  allusions 
to  other  contemporaneous  facts,  many  of  which  are 
independently  known  to  myself. 

“I  think,  moreover,  that  no  one  who  had  studied 
these  entries  thruout  would  doubt  the  originally  pri¬ 
vate  and  intimate  character  of  many  of  them.  The 
tone  of  the  spirits  toward  Mr.  Moses  himself  is  ha¬ 
bitually  courteous  and  respectful.  But  occasionally 
they  have  some  criticism  which  pierces  to  the  quick, 
and  which  goes  far  to  explain  to  me  Mr.  Moses’  un¬ 
willingness  to  have  the  books  fully  inspected  during 
his  lifetime.  He  did,  no  doubt,  contemplate  their  be¬ 
ing  at  least  read  by  friends  after  his  death ;  and  there 
are  indications  that  there  may  have  been  a  still  more 
private  book,  now  doubtless  destroyed,  to  which  mes- 


III.  A  Typical  Example  of  “Spirit  Writing” 

Automatic  communication,  purporting  to  come  from  Dr.  Hvslop’s 
(  Kpnr\/'m  et  by  the ,  mecljuin,  Mrs.  Smead.  in  successive  trances, 
nnmen/of  Mfr0Ie  Hyj  °P  s  Preliminary  Report  on  the  Trance  Phe- 
266  and  276  MrS'  bmead'  ]  ComPare  tn.s  with  the  plates  facing  pages 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  287 

sages  of  an  intimate  character  were  sometimes  con¬ 
signed.  .  .  . 

“That  they  were  written  down  in  good  faith  by 
Mr.  Moses  as  proceeding  from  the  personages  whose 
names  are  signed  to  them,  there  can  be  little  doubt. 
But  as  to  whether  they  did  really  proceed  from  those 
personages,  or  no,  there  may  in  many  cases  be  very 
great  doubt — a  doubt  which  I,  at  least,  shall  be  quite 
unable  to  remove.” 


“NO  EXPERIMENTAL  PROOF  OF  SURVIVAL  AFTER 
DEATH  WILL  EVER  REACH  AN  ABSOLUTELY  CON¬ 
CLUSIVE  SCIENTIFIC  DEMONSTRATION” 

I  take  it  that  by  the  above  question,  addressed  to  me,  is 
meant,  “Have  we  any  trustworthy  evidence  outside  of  the 
events  recorded  in  the  New  Testament — evidence  that  will 
stand  strict  scientific  scrutiny — that  human  personality  sur¬ 
vives  the  death  of  the  body?”  In  my  opinion  we  have  such  evi¬ 
dence,  and  it  is  slowly  but  surely  accumulating.  At  present  I 
cannot  say  that  there  exists  much  psychical  evidence  of  scien¬ 
tific  value  for  the  identity  of  the  discarnate  human  spirit  many 
months  or  years  after  death.  The  evidence  begins  to  grow  in 
abundance  and  weight  as  we  approach  a  limited  period  after 
death;  and  when  we  come  to  within  a  few  days,  still  more, 
within  a  few  hours  of  death,  the  evidence  becomes  large  in 
volume  and  conclusive  in  character.  It  may  be  that  a  decay 
or  dissolution  of  the  spirit,  as  of  the  body,  takes  place  more 
or  less  slowly  after  death,  possibly  to  be  followed,  as  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion  gives  us  reason  to  hope,  by,  in  many  cases,  a 
reintegration  of  the  spirit  and  a  transition  to  a  larger  and 
fuller  life,  the  new  and  vivid  environment  of  which  would 
probably  cause  a  more  or  less  complete  lapse  of  all  earthly 
memories. 

Though  in  my  opinion  the  weight  of  evidence  will  eventu¬ 
ally  lead  to  a  very  general  acceptance  of  the  fact  that  human 
intelligence  and  self-consciousness  can  exist  without  a  material 
brain  and  body,  yet  it  seems  to  me  highly  probable  that  no 
single  experimental  proof  of  the  survival  of  human  personality 
after  death  will  ever  reach  an  absolutely  CONCLUSIVE  scien¬ 
tific  demonstration.  This  particular  field  of  psychical  inquiry 
belongs  to  an  order  other  than  that  with  which  science  deals, 
and  this  being  so,  it  cannot  be  adequately  investigated  with 
the  limited  faculties  we  now  possess.  On  the  other  hand,  those 

288 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


289 


who  have  devoted  long  years  to  a  searching  investigation  of 
the  evidence  of  survival  after  death,  and  who  have  approached 
the  subject  in  a  scientific  and  judicial  spirit,  have  found  the 
cumulative  value  of  the  evidence  to  be  so  strong  that  it  was 
impossible  to  withhold  belief  in  the  fact  of  that  survival.  In 
support  of  this  it  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to  that  shrewd 
and  able  investigator,  and  at  first  complete  agnostic,  the  late 
Dr.  Hodgson.  Both  he  and  the  late  Frederic  Myers  were 
slowly  but  irresistibly  driven  to  believe  from  recent  evidence 
that  human  personality  transcends  the  shock  of  death.  Emi¬ 
nent  scientific  men,  such  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir  William 
Crookes,  Dr.  A.  R.  Wallace,  and  others,  have  also  been  driven 
to  the  same  opinion,  and  so  was  that  acute  thinker,  the  late 
Professor  De  Morgan,  father  of  the  now  well-known  novelist. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  the  manifestations  of  life  in  the 
unseen  are  so  paltry  as  to  excite  contempt.  But  is  anything 
paltry  that  manifests  life?  In  the  dumb  agony  which  seizes 
the  soul  when  some  loved  one  is  taken  from  us,  and  the  awful 
sense  of  separation  comes  over  and  paralyzes  us  as  we  gaze 
on  the  lifeless  form,  should  we  deem  the  lifting  of  a  finger  or 
the  movement  of  the  lips,  or  any  action  of  the  dead,  a  paltry 
thing,  if  it  assured  us  that  death  had  not  ended  a  loved  life, 
and  still  more,  that  death  will  not  end  all,  but  that  life  and 
personality  remain  though  the  clothing  of  the  body  be  gone? 

Another  line  of  evidence  is  afforded  by  the  records  of  appa¬ 
ritions  at  the  moment  of  death.  The  cautiously  expressed  but 
decisive  conclusion  was  arrived  at  after  prolonged  investigation 
by  Professor  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick  and  others,  that  between 
deaths,  and  apparitions  of  the  dying  or  deceased  person,  a 
connection  exists  not  due  to  chance  alone.  A  recent  case  of 
a  veridical,  or  truth-telling  phantasm,  appearing  for  some  time 
after  death,  which  I  have  carefully  investigated,  and  know 
the  percipient,  is  so  impressive  and  convincing  I  will  briefly 
narrate  the  facts. 

A  gentleman  of  some  note  shot  himself  in  London,  in  the 
spring  of  1907.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  his  mind  was 
unhinged  at  the  time  by  the  receipt  that  morning  of  a  letter 
from  a  young  lady  that  blighted  his  hopes.  Before  taking 
his  life  he  scribbled  a  memorandum  leaving  an  annuity  to  a 


290 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


young  lady  who  was  his  godchild,  and  to  whom  he  was  much 
attached.  Three  days  afterward  (on  the  day  of  his  funeral) 
he  appeared  to  this  godchild,  who  was  being  educated  in  a 
convent  school  on  the  Continent,  informing  her  of  the  fact  of 
his  sudden  death,  of  its  manner,  and  of  the  cause  which  had 
led  him  to  take  his  life,  and  asking  her  to  pray  for  him.  The 
mother,  anxious  to  conceal  from  her  daughter  the  distressing 
circumstances  of  her  godfather’s  death,  waited  to  write  until 
a  few  days  AFTER  the  funeral,  and  then  only  stated  that  her 
uncle  (as  he  was  called)  had  died  suddenly.  Subsequently, 
upon  meeting  her  daughter,  on  her  return  from  the  Continent, 
the  mother  was  amazed  to  hear  not  only  of  the  apparition, 
but  that  it  had  communicated  to  her  daughter  all  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  which  she  had  never  intended  her  daughter  to 
know.  Careful  inquiry  shows  that  it  was  impossible  for  the 
information  to  have  reached  her  daughter  through  normal 
means,  for  the  percipient  was  not  only  secluded  in  a  convent, 
but  the  regulations  were  so  strict  that  no  newspaper  or  other 
sources  of  news  were  allowed  into  the  convent,  even  had  the 
facts  been  published  at  the  time,  which  was  not  the  case. 
Even  letters  to  the  pupils  are  restricted  and  supervised. 

— Professor  William  Barrett,  F.R.S. 


Mrs.  Leonora  Piper  of  Arlington,  Mass. 

Most  famous  of  all  spirit-writing  mediums,  and  never  detected  in 
fraud.  She  lias  been  the  means  of  converting  to  spiritualism  many  oi 
the  most  prominent  English  and  American  investigators. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


THE  PIPER  CASE 

The  case  of  Mrs.  Leonora  F.  Piper,  of  Arlington, 
Mass.,  is  as  preeminent  in  the  field  of  psychical  me- 
diumship  as  that  of  D.  D.  Home  in  physical  medium- 
ship,  and  for  the  same  reason — she  has  never  once  been 
detected  in  or  suspected  of  fraud. 

It  is  not  that  the  phenomena  observed  with  Mrs. 
Piper  are  of  a  particularly  striking  nature ;  a  seance 
with  her  compared  with  one  with  Home,  for  example, 
would  probably  seem  distinctly  “slow.”  But  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century  Mrs.  Piper  has  been  under  the 
continuous  and  strict  surveillance  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research ;  she  has  been  subject  to  the  closest 
scientific  observation ;  the  data  secured  with  her  is 
more  voluminous  and  evidential  than  with  any  other 
medium ;  and  she,  more  than  any  other,  has  been  the 
means  of  converting  to  the  spiritualistic  hypothesis 
nearly  all  the  prominent  investigators  of  psychic  phe¬ 
nomena. 

Of  the  genuineness  of  Mrs.  Piper’s  messages,  as  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  their  authenticity,  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  That  is,  she  herself  is  honest  in  her  belief  in 
their  supernormal  origin;  whatever  may  be  the  truth 
of  that  contention.  Every  one  who  has  made  anything 
more  than  the  most  superficial  investigation  of  her  me- 

291 


292  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

diumistic  powers  is  convinced  at  least  of  the  entire 
absence  of  fraud.  Dr.  Hyslop,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir 
William  Crookes,  all  assert  their  strong  faith  in  the 
genuineness  of  the  phenomena  exhibited.  Dr.  Hodg¬ 
son,  ever  strongly  skeptical,  who  was  sent  to  this  coun¬ 
try  by  the  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research  for 
the  avowed  purpose  of  revealing  whatever  duplicity 
there  was,  came,  saw,  but,  unlike  Caesar,  was  con¬ 
quered,  and  converted  to  spiritualism.  Professor 
James,  as  early  as  1885,  wrote  he  was  “persuaded  of 
the  medium’s  honesty  and  of  the  genuineness  of  her 
trance,  and  altho  at  first  disposed  to  think  that  the  ‘hits’ 
she  made  were  either  lucky  coincidences,  or  the  result 
of  knowledge  on  her  part  of  who  the  sitter  was,  and  of 
his  or  her  family  affairs,  I  now  believe  her  to  be  in 
possession  of  a  power  as  yet  unexplained.”1  Some¬ 
what  later,  “Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  of  Har¬ 
vard  University,  had  two  sittings.  He  could  not  re¬ 
port  anything  indubitably  supernormal.  But  he  said 
that  ‘there  was  no  question  as  to  Mrs.  Piper’s  good 
faith.’  ”2 

Frederic  Myers  writes  in  a  similar  manner.  “On 
the  whole,  I  believe  that  all  observers,  both  in  America 
and  in  England,  who  have  seen  enough  of  Mrs.  Piper 
in  both  states  to  be  able  to  form  a  judgment,  will  agree 
in  affirming  (1)  that  many  of  the  facts  given  could 
not  have  been  learned  even  by  a  skilled  detective;  (2) 
that  to  learn  others  of  them,  altho  possible,  would  have 
needed  an  expenditure  of  money  as  well  as  of  time, 
which  it  seems  impossible  to  suppose  that  Mrs.  Piper 


’Quoted  in  Bruce:  Riddle  of  Personality,  pp.  127-8. 

2Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  210. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


293 


could  have  met;  and  (3)  that  her  conduct  has  never 
given  any  ground  whatever  for  supposing  her  capable 
of  fraud  or  trickery.  Few  persons  have  been  so  long 
and  so  carefully  observed ;  and  she  has  left  on  all  ob¬ 
servers  the  impression  of  thoro  uprightness,  candor 
and  honesty.”1 

The  reality  of  the  trance  state  has  been  determined 
conclusively,  so  far  as  experimental  test  can  do  so. 
“Mrs.  Piper  goes  into  a  ‘trance’  whose  nature  we  do 
not  know,”  says  Dr.  Hyslop,  “except  that  it  involves 
the  suspension  of  her  normal  consciousness,  and  in 
this  condition  the  alleged  messages  from  discarnate 
spirits  are  written  visibly  by  her  own  hand.  Her  head 
lies  upon  a  pillow  placed  upon  a  table,  and  is  turned 
away  from  the  writing.  The  tests  for  anesthesia,  ot¬ 
her  unconscious  state,  were  exceptionally  severe,  and 
such  as  are  never  employed  by  physicians  to  ascertain 
a  similar  condition.  The  writing  does  not  present  any 
special  mystery  to  the  scientific  mind,  as  it  is  familiar 
with  automatic  work  of  this  kind  where  there  is  no  pre¬ 
tense  or  evidence  of  discarnate  intervention.  It  is  the 
contents  of  the  ‘messages’  that  suggest  some  extraordi¬ 
nary  origin,  at  least  simulative  of  spiritistic  communi¬ 
cations.”2 

As  Dr.  Hyslop  notes  in  his  analysis  of  the  Piper 
case,  the  alleged  fraud  may  take  many  forms.  Infor¬ 
mation  may  be  given  unconsciously  by  the  sitters  in 
answer  to  clever  “fishing”  by  the  medium ;  or  even 
mere  intonations  of  the  voice.  Detectives  may  be  em¬ 
ployed  to  gather  advance  information  regarding  sit- 


’S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  6,  pp.  436-42. 

’Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  131. 


294. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


ters.  Sleight-of-hand  tricks  of  various  kinds  may  ac¬ 
count  for  much  “supernatural”  knowledge,  and  shrewd 
guessing  and  a  keen  study  of  human  nature  for  more. 

Yet  not  only  those  scientists  already  quoted,  but  also 
Mrs.  Sidgwick,1  Mr.  Frank  Podmore,2  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang,3  Professor  Richet,  and  practically  every  investi¬ 
gator  present  at  one  of  Mrs.  Piper’s  sittings,  refuses 
to  consider  fraud  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  re¬ 
markable  results  obtained. 

Dr.  Hyslop  goes  so  far  as  to  say:  “In  the  phe¬ 
nomena,  however,  which  I  have  summarized  in  this 
book,  and  in  the  cases  concerned,  I  do  not  propose  to 
discuss  the  hypothesis  of  fraud.  I  consider  that  it  has 
been  excluded  from  consideration  as  long  ago  as  1889, 
and  I  think  that  every  intelligent  person  who  examines 
the  facts  carefully,  and  in  their  details,  will  not  be 
willing  to  accept  the  responsibility  which  his  theory  of 
fraud  will  impose  upon  him  for  its  assertion.”4  And 
Mr.  Carrington  adds “The  more  we  study  the  case, 
the  more  are  we  convinced  that  there  cannot  possibly 
be  any  system  of  fraud  that  would  account  for  it.  Were 
all  the  mediums  in  the  United  States  to  combine  their 
information  for  the  exclusive  use  of  Mrs.  Piper,  and 
were  she  to  conduct  an  elaborate  system  of  private 
and  paid  inquiry  herself,  that  would  not  begin  to  ac¬ 
count  for  many  of  the  incidents  that  have  transpired 
at  the  Piper  seances,  or  for  the  case  as  a  whole.” 

I  shall  now  run  over  as  briefly  as  I  may  the  psychic 

1S.  P.  R.  Proceedings,  v.  15,  pp.  16-38. 

2Ibid.,  v.  14,  pp.  50-78.  sIbid.,  v.  15,  pp.  39-52. 

'Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  247. 

'Carrington :  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism ,  p.  413. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


295 


history  of  this  remarkable  medium,  illustrating  the  ac¬ 
count  with  typical  bits  of  the  recorded  phenomena. 

The  Early  Phases  of  the  Piper  Case 

Perhaps  the  first  scientist  to  give  serious  considera¬ 
tion  to  Mrs.  Piper  was  William  James,  Professor  of 
Psychology  at  Harvard  University.  He  thus  relates 
the  impression  created  by  his  first  sittings  with  her,  and 
the  messages  given  him  therein :  “The  most  convin¬ 
cing  things  said  about  my  own  immediate  household 
were  either  very  intimate  or  very  trivial.  Unfortu¬ 
nately,  the  former  things  cannot  well  be  published.  Of 
the  trivial  things,  I  have  forgotten  the  greater  num¬ 
ber,  but  the  following  rarer  nantes  may  serve  as  sam¬ 
ples  of  their  class.  She  said  that  we  had  lost  recently 
a  rug  and  I  a  waistcoat.  (She  wrongly  accused  a  per¬ 
son  of  stealing  the  rug,  which  was  afterward  found  in 
the  house.)  She  told  of  my  killing  a  gray-and-white 
cat  with  ether,  and  described  how  it  had  ‘spun  round 
and  round’  before  dying.  She  told  how  my  New  York 
aunt  had  written  a  letter  to  my  wife  warning  her 
against  all  mediums,  and  then  went  on  a  most  amusing 
criticism,  full  of  traits  vifs,  of  the  excellent  woman’s 
character.  (Of  course,  no  one  but  my  wife  and  I 
knew  of  the  existence  of  the  letter  in  question.)  She 
was  strong  on  the  events  in  our  nursery,  and  gave 
striking  advice  during  our  first  visit  to  her  about  the 
way  to  deal  with  certain  ‘tantrums’  of  our  second  child, 
‘little  Billy-boy,’  as  she  called  him,  reproducing  his  nur¬ 
sery  name.  She  told  how  the  crib  creaked  at  night, 
how  a  certain  rocking-chair  creaked  mysteriously,  how 
my  wife  had  heard  footsteps  on  the  stairs,  etc.  Insig¬ 
nificant  as  these  things  sound  when  read,  the  accumu- 


296  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

lation  of  a  large  number  of  them  has  an  irresistible 
effect.”1 

At  another  time  he  says :  “I  was  told  by  Mrs.  Piper 
that  the  spirit  of  a  boy  named  Robert  F.  was  the  com¬ 
panion  of  my  lost  infant.  The  F.’s  were  cousins  of 
my  wife,  living  in  a  distant  city.  On  my  return  home 
I  mentioned  the  incident  to  my  wife,  saying,  ‘Your 
cousin  did  lose  a  baby,  didn’t  she?  But  Mrs.  Piper 
was  wrong  about  its  sex,  name  and  age.’  I  then 
learned  that  Mrs.  Piper  had  been  quite  right  in  all 
those  particulars,  and  that  mine  was  the  wrong  im¬ 
pression.”2 

Such  a  report  as  this,  coming  from  a  scientist  as  emi¬ 
nent  as  Professor  James,  excited,  of  course,  much  com¬ 
ment  and  interest  among  the  members  of  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research,  and  finally  Dr.  Hodgson,  who 
had  already  won  a  name  for  himself  in  the  detection 
of  “psychic”  fraud,  was  commissioned  to  investigate 
Mrs.  Piper. 

We  have  already  noted  the  result.  Detectives  em¬ 
ployed  by  him  to  shadow  the  medium  and  her  family 
gave  negative  results ;  and  his  own  efforts  to  discover 
fraud  were  unavailing. 

“My  .  .  .  knowledge  of  Mrs.  Piper,”  says  Dr. 
Hodgson  in  his  own  account  of  the  first  investiga¬ 
tion,  “began  in  May,  1887,  about  a  fortnight  after  my 
arrival  in  Boston,  and  my  first  appointment  for  a  sit¬ 
ting  was  made  by  Professor  William  James. 

“I  had  several  sittings  myself  with  Mrs.  Piper,  at 
which  much  intimate  knowledge,  some  of  it  personal, 


’Quoted  in  Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  102. 

2Ibid.,  p.  245. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


297 


was  shown  of  deceased  friends  or  relatives  of  mine; 
and  I  made  appointments  for  sittings  for  at  least  fifty 
persons  whom  I  believed  to  be  strangers  to  Mrs.  Piper, 
taking  the  utmost  precautions  to  prevent  her  obtaining 
any  information  beforehand  as  to  who  the  sitters  were 
to  be.  The  general  result  was  the  same  as  in  my  own 
case.  Most  of  these  persons  were  told  facts  thru  the 
trance  utterance  which  they  felt  sure  could  not  have 
become  known  to  Mrs.  Piper  by  ordinary  means.  .  .  . 
My  own  conclusion  was  that — after  allowing  the  wid¬ 
est  possible  margin  for  information  obtainable  under 
the  circumstances  by  ordinary  means,  for  chance  coin¬ 
cidence  and  remarkable  guessing,  aided  by  clues  given 
consciously  and  unconsciously  by  the  sitters,  and 
helped  out  by  supposed  hyperesthesia  on  the  part  of 
Mrs.  Piper — there  remained  a  large  residuum  of 
knowledge  displayed  in  her  trance  state  which  could 
not  be  accounted  for  except  on  the  hypothesis  that  she 
had  some  supernormal  power ;  and  this  conviction  has 
been  strengthened  by  later  investigations.”1 

Mrs.  Piper’s  chief  “control”  at  this  period  was  the 
spirit  of  a  French  physician  named  “Phinuit”  (pro¬ 
nounced  Finn-wee).  His  whole  name,  he  said,  was 
“Dr.  Jean  Phinuit  Scliville,”  but  “they  always  called 
me  ‘Dr.  Phinuit.’  ” 

“He  was  unable  to  tell  the  year  of  his  birth  or  the 
year  of  his  death,”  says  Dr.  Hodgson,  “but  by  putting 
together  several  of  his  statements,  it  would  appear  that 
he  was  born  about  1790,  and  died  about  i860.  He  was 
born  in  Marseilles,  went  to  school  and  studied  medi¬ 
cine  at  a  college  called  ‘Merciana’  (?)  College,  where 


1Quoted  in  Hyslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  1 16-18. 


298  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

he  took  his  degree  when  he  was  between  twenty-five 
and  twenty-eight  years  old.  He  also  studied  medicine 
at  ‘Metz,  in  Germany.’  At  the  age  of  thirty-five  he 
married  Marie  Latimer,  who  had  a  sister  named  Jose¬ 
phine.  Marie  was  thirty  years  of  age  when  he  married 
her,  and  died  when  she  was  about  fifty.  He  had  no 
children. 

“He  mentioned  the  ‘Hospital  of  God,’  or  ‘Hospital 
de  Dieu’  (Hotel  Dieu),”  adds  Dr.  Hyslop,  “and  re¬ 
ferred  to  Dupuytren  and  Bovier,  the  former  of  whom 
is  known  to  have  been  a  distinguished  French  physi¬ 
cian  and  surgeon,  who  was  born  in  1777  and  died  in 
1835.  But  there  were  contradictions  in  Phinuit’s  story 
of  himself,  and  in  addition  to  this,  inquiries  as  to  the 
existence  of  any  such  person  in  France  did  not  con¬ 
firm  the  story  in  a  single  detail.  The  consequence  was 
that  he  has  always  been  treated,  and  must  be  treated, 
in  the  discussion  of  these  phenomena,  as  a  secondary 
personality  of  Mrs.  Piper.  But  on  any  theory,  he  is 
the  central  psychological  phenomenon  of  the  case  for 
the  apparent  management  of  it  in  its  early  history.”1 

Commenting  on  this  Phinuit  “control,”  Professor 
James  said: 

“The  most  remarkable  thing  about  the  Phinuit  per¬ 
sonality  seems  to  me  the  extraordinary  tenacity  and 
minuteness  of  his  memory.  The  medium  has  been  vis¬ 
ited  by  many  hundreds  of  sitters,  half  of  them,  per¬ 
haps,  being  strangers,  who  have  come  but  once.  To 
each,  Phinuit  gives  an  hour  full  of  disconnected  frag¬ 
ments  of  talk  about  persons  living,  dead,  or  imaginary, 
and  events  past,  future,  or  unreal.  What  normal  wak- 


^yslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  124-5. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


299 


ing  memory  could  keep  this  chaotic  mass  of  stuff  to¬ 
gether?  Yet  Phinuit  does  so;  for  the  chances  seem  to 
be  that  if  a  sitter  should  go  back  after  years  of  inter¬ 
val,  the  medium,  when  once  entranced,  would  recall 
the  minutest  incidents  of  the  earlier  interview,  and  be¬ 
gin  by  recapitulating  much  of  what  had  then  been  said. 
So  far  as  I  can  discover,  Mrs.  Piper’s  waking  mem¬ 
ory  is  not  remarkable,  and  the  whole  constitution  of 
her  trance  memory  is  something  which  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  understand.”1 

Mrs.  Piper  is  Investigated  in  England 

After  an  exhaustive  investigation,  Dr.  Hodgson  an¬ 
nounced  himself,  if  not  convinced,  at  least  extremely 
puzzled,  and  recommended  that  Mrs.  Piper  allow  fur¬ 
ther  study  of  her  case  directly  by  the  Society  for  Psy¬ 
chical  Research.  She  agreed,  and  went  to  England; 
elaborate  precautions  being  taken  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
and  others  who  had  her  in  charge  to  prevent  her  gain¬ 
ing  any  information  regarding  prospective  sitters. 
Here  are  some  of  his  statements  regarding  what  was 
done  to  obviate  fraud : 

“Mrs.  Piper’s  correspondence  was  small,  something 
like  three  letters  a  week,  even  when  the  children  were 
away  from  her.  The  outsides  of  her  letters  nearly  al¬ 
ways  passed  through  my  hands,  and  often  the  insides, 
too,  by  her  permission. 

“The  servants  were  all,  as  it  happened,  new.  .  .  . 
Consequently,  they  were  entirely  ignorant  of  family 
connections,  and  could  have  told  nothing,  however 
largely  they  had  been  paid. 


‘Quoted  in  Funk:  The  Widow's  Mite,  p.  244. 


300 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


“The  ingenious  suggestion  has  been  made  that  they 
;were  her  spies.  Knowing  the  facts,  I  will  content  my¬ 
self  with  asserting  that  they  had  absolutely  no  connec¬ 
tion  with  her  of  any  sort.  .  .  . 

“In  order  to  give  better  evidence,  I  obtained  per¬ 
mission,  and  immediately  thereafter  personally  over¬ 
hauled  the  whole  of  her  luggage.  Directories,  biogra¬ 
phies,  ‘Men  of  Our  Time,’  and  such-like  books,  were 
entirely  absent.  In  fact,  there  were  scarcely  any  books 
at  all. 

“The  eldest  child  at  home  was  aged  nine,  and  the 
utmost  of  information  at  his  disposal  was  fairly  well 
known  to  us.  My  wife  was  skeptically  inclined,  and 
was  guarded  in  her  utterances,  and  tho  a  few  slips 
could  hardly  be  avoided — and  one  or  two  of  these 
were  rather  unlucky  ones — they  were  noted  and  re¬ 
corded. 

“Strange  sitters  frequently  arrived  at  II  a.m.,  and 
I  admitted  them  myself  straight  into  the  room  where 
we  were  going  to  sit ;  they  were  shortly  afterward  in¬ 
troduced  to  Mrs.  Piper  under  some  assumed  name. 

“The  whole  attitude  of  Mrs.  Piper  was  natural,  un- 
inquisitive,  ladylike,  and  straightforward.  .  .  . 

“Her  whole  demeanor  struck  every  one  who  became 
intimate  with  her  as  utterly  beyond  and  above  sus¬ 
picion.”1 

“These  statements  illustrate  the  kind  of  precautions 
generally  taken  during  the  history  of  the  Piper  ex¬ 
periments.  .  .  .  The  whole  burden  of  proof  now  rests 
upon  the  man  who  persists  in  irresponsible  talk  and 


’Quoted  by  Hyslop  in  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  119- 
121. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


301 


suspicion  of  fraud.  I  say  boldly  that  no  intelligent 
man,  whether  scientific  or  otherwise,  would  any  longer 
advance  such  an  hypothesis  without  giving  specific  evi¬ 
dence  that  it  is  a  fact  rather  than  an  imaginary  possi¬ 
bility.”1 

Seances,  often  two  a  day,  were  held  for  several 
weeks;  and  tho  some  were  almost  complete  failures, 
others  were  marked  with  conspicuous  success.  “True 
incidents  were  often  given  in  such  a  mass  of  error  as 
to  make  it  necessary  to  discount  their  value.  Some 
sittings  .  .  .  have  all  the  appearance  of  the  ordinary 
medium’s  talk  and  associational  reproductions.  Names 
were  often  given  in  a  manner  to  suggest  guessing  and 
‘fishing,’  and  even  tho  they  were  strikingly  right,  their 
significance  had  to  be  skeptically  received  or  wholly 
rejected.”2 

Myers  speaks  in  almost  the  same  terms :  “  ‘Phinuit’ 
— to  use  his  own  appellation,  for  brevity’s  sake — is  by 
no  means  above  ‘fishing.’  .  .  .  There  were  some  inter¬ 
views  thruout  which  Phinuit  hardly  asked  any  ques¬ 
tions,  and  hardly  stated  anything  which  was  not  true. 
There  were  others  thruout  which  his  utterances  showed 
not  one  glimpse  of  real  knowledge,  but  consisted  wholly 
of  fishing  questions  and  random  assertions.”3 

One  of  the  most  complete  failures  was  the  sitting 
with  Professor  Macalister.  “He  spoke  of  the  failure 
in  strong  and  uncomplimentary  language.  He  thought 
it  a  case  of  hystero-epilepsy,  and  that  Mrs.  Piper  was 
wide  enough  awake  to  profit  by  suggestion.”4 

’Hyslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  121. 

2Ibid.,  p.  163. 

’Quoted  in  Funk :  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  250. 

‘See  Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  163-4. 


302 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


But  on  the  other  hand,  thousands  of  items  were 
given  which  by  no  possible  explanation  could  have 
been  known  to  the  medium ;  her  successes  were  as  fre¬ 
quent  and  more  striking  than  her  failures.  For  ex¬ 
ample,  in  one  of  the  first  sittings  Mrs.  Lodge  asked 
Phinuit  to  tell  her  something  of  her  father,  who  died 
when  she  was  but  two  weeks  old.  Several  highly  in¬ 
teresting  but  not  conclusive  remarks  were  made ;  then 
Phinuit  gave  this  very  remarkable  “message” :  “  ‘He 
had  an  illness  and  passed  out  with  it.  He  tried  to 
speak  to  Mary,  his  wife,  and  stretched  out  his  hand 
to  her,  but  couldn’t  reach,  and  fell,  and  passed  away. 
That’s  the  last  thing  he  remembers  in  this  mortal  body.’ 
He  added  a  statement  about  taking  some  medicine,  the 
last  he  took,  and  then  that  something  had  happened  to 
his  right  leg  and  it  was  caused  by  a  fall,  affecting  the 
leg  below  the  knee.  It  was  also  stated  that  it  gave  him 
pain  at  times. 

“The  facts  were  that  Mrs.  Lodge’s  father  had  his 
health  broken  by  tropical  travel  and  yellow  fever,  and 
his  heart  was  weak.  A  severe  illness  of  his  wife  was 
a  great  strain  on  him.  As  she  was  recuperating  he 
entered  her  room  one  day,  quite  faint,  half  dressed, 
and  holding  a  handkerchief  to  his  mouth,  which  was 
full  of  blood.  ‘He  stretched  out  his  hand  to  her,  re¬ 
moved  the  handkerchief  and  tried  to  speak,  but  only 
gasped  and  fell  on  the  floor.  Very  soon  he  died.’  He 
had  broken  his  leg  below  the  knee  once  by  falling 
down  the  hold,  and  in  certain  states  of  the  weather  it 
afterward  pained  him. 

“Phinuit  made  the  further  statement  that  he  had  had 
trouble  with  his  teeth ;  that  he  wore  a  sort  of  uniform 
with  ‘big,  bright  buttons’;  that  he  traveled  a  good 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


303 


deal.  ...  A  little  later  it  was  intimated  that  he  was 
a  captain.  The  facts  were  that  during  his  married 
life  he  had  been  troubled  much  with  toothache;  his 
position  was  that  of  captain  in  the  merchant  service ;  he 
traveled  a  great  deal  as  a  consequence,  though  his 
travel  was  mentioned  before  the  statement  was  made 
that  he  was  a  captain.”* 1 

Another  sitting,  held  later,  with  Miss  Goodrich- 
Freer,  author  of  Essays  in  Psychical  Research,  was 
especially  successful.  “You  see  flowers  sometimes?” 
asks  Phinuit.  “(What  is  my  favorite  flower?  There 
is  a  spirit  who  would  know.)  ‘Pansies.  No,  delicate 
pink  roses.  You  have  them  about  you,  spiritually  as 
well  as  physically.’  Miss  X.  has,  on  a  certain  day  every 
month,  a  present  of  delicate  pink  roses.  She  frequently 
has  hallucinatory  visions  of  flowers.2 

“  ‘There  is  an  old  lady  in  the  spirit,’  continues 
Phinuit,  ‘wearing  a  cap,  who  is  fond  of  you — your 
grandmother.  She  is ‘the  mother  of  the  clergyman’s 
wife’s  mother.  (Not  correct.)  She  wears  a  lace  col¬ 
lar  and  a  big  brooch  ;  bluish-gray  eyes,  dark  hair  turned 
grayish,  with  a  black  ribbon  running  thru  it ;  rather 
prominent  nose  and  peaked  chin ;  named  Anne.’  This 
is  a  correct  description  of  a  friend  of  Miss  X.,  whom 
she  was  in  the  habit  of  calling  ‘Granny.’  ”s 

Unable  to  discover  fraud,  but  equally  certain  that 
the  evidence  for  out-and-out  spiritualism  afforded  by 
Mrs.  Piper  was  still  inconclusive,  the  Society  for  Psy¬ 
chical  Research  reserved  final  decision,  in  the  meantime 
delegating  Dr.  Hodgson  to  continue  his  investigation 


’Hyslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  140-2. 

ilbid.,  pp.  159-61.  sIbid.,  p.  161. 


304* 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


of  her  in  this  country.  Mrs.  Piper’s  sittings  with  Dr. 
Hodgson,  both  the  first  and  second  series,  were  among 
the  most  remarkable  held,  being  very  rich  in  evidential 
data. 

In  considering  the  first  series,  “it  should  be  remem¬ 
bered  that  he  was  a  native  of  Australia,  graduated  at 
the  University  of  Melbourne,  and  afterward  came  to 
England,  where  he  had  been  Lecturer  at  Cambridge 
University  before  he  was  sent  to  India  to  investigate 
Madame  Blavatsky.  He  had  come  to  this  country  for 
the  first  time  about  a  fortnight  before  his  first  sitting 
with  Mrs.  Piper.” 

The  Appearance  of  the  Pelham  “Control” 

Shortly  after  Mrs.  Piper’s  English  visit  there  oc¬ 
curred  a  most  extraordinary  change  in  her  “control.” 
Dr.  Hodgson  had  had  a  friend,  a  young  man,  unmar¬ 
ried,  and  known  in  the  records  of  the  Society,  out  of 
consideration  of  the  feelings  of  his  surviving  relatives, 
as  “George  Pelham.”  A  lawyer  and  author,  a  native 
of  Boston,  but  for  several  years  resident  in  New  York, 
he  had  joined  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  “His 
interest  .  .  .  was  explicable  rather  by  an  intellectual 
openness  and  fearlessness  characteristic  of  him,  than 
by  any  tendency  to  believe  in  supernormal  phenomena. 
.  .  .  We  had  several  long  talks  together  on  philosophic 
subjects,”  says  Dr.  Hodgson,  “and  one  very  long  dis¬ 
cussion,  probably  at  least  two  years  before  his  death, 
on  the  possibility  of  a  ‘future  life.’  In  this  he  main¬ 
tained  that  in  accordance  with  a  fundamental  philo¬ 
sophic  theory  which  we  both  accepted,  a  ‘future  life’ 
was  not  only  incredible,  but  inconceivable.  At  the  con- 


Dr.  Richard  Hodgson 

He  was  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  investigators  in  psychical 
research.  This  photograph,  reproduced  from  Mr.  Carrington’s  “Physi¬ 
cal  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,”  Dr.  Hodgson  had  taken  to  show  that 
a  face  may  be  made  to  appear  over  jewelry,  as  the  result  of  fraudulent 
manipulation  of  the  plates,  a  thing  which  spiritualists  have  frequently 
asserted  impossible. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


305 


elusion  of  the  discussion  he  admitted  that  a  future  life 
was  conceivable,  but  he  did  not  accept  its  credibility, 
and  vowed  that  if  he  should  die  before  I  did,  and  found 
himself  ‘still  existing,’  he  would  ‘make  things  lively’ 
in  the  effort  to  reveal  the  fact  of  his  continued  exist¬ 
ence.”1 

In  the  early  part  of  1892  “George  Pelham”  was 
killed  accidentally  and  very  suddenly.  About  a  month 
afterward  Dr.  Hodgson  was  present  at  a  sitting,  with 
another  friend  of  George  Pelham’s,  when  Phinuit 
spoke  the  latter’s  full  name,  and  said  that  he  was  pres¬ 
ent  and  desired  to  communicate. 

At  this  and  succeeding  seances,  George  Pelham  gave 
numerous  proofs  of  his  identity,  recalling  incidents  un¬ 
known  to  any  of  his  hearers,  but  afterward  verified; 
in  short,  gave  what  Phinuit  himself  had  never  been 
able  to  give,  seemingly  conclusive  evidence  that  he  was 
indeed  the  spirit  he  pretended  to  be. 

Pelham  at  once  began  to  assume  the  functions  of 
a  “control,”  Phinuit  being  gradually  pushed  into  the 
background.  Unlike  Phinuit,  whose  messages  had  al¬ 
ways  been  spoken,  Pelham  transmitted  his  in  writing, 
which  made  possible,  of  course,  a  much  more  perfect 
record.  At  times  both  “controls”  communicated  at 
once,  Mrs.  Piper  speaking  Phinuit’s  message  and  writ¬ 
ing  Pelham’s  simultaneously.  With  Pelham’s  advent, 
Mrs.  Piper’s  mediumship  took  on  a  newer  and  im¬ 
proved  stage.  Phinuit  was  always  a  bit  of  a  rascal, 
and  something  of  a  faker ;  but  now  the  communica¬ 
tions  became  in  every  way  more  definite  and  correct. 

With  Pelham  Dr.  Hodgson  made  interesting  ex- 


’Quoted  in  Hyslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  127. 


306 


rARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


periments  of  various  kinds,  some  of  which  seem  re¬ 
markably  conclusive ;  for  example,  sending  Pelham  “in 
the  spirit”  somewhere  to  see  what  a  designated  person 
was  doing,  and  later  verifying  the  information  thus 
obtained. 

For  example:  “George  Pelham  was  asked  to  go 
away  and  watch  the  Howards,  and  report.  Before  the 
sitting  ended  George  Pelham  returned,  and  thru  Phin- 
uit  said:  ‘She’s  writing,  and  taken  some  violets  and 
put  them  in  a  book.  And  it  looks  as  if  she’s  writing 
that  to  my  mother.  Who’s  Tyson  .  .  .  Davis?  I  saw 
her  sitting  before  a  little  desk  or  table.  Took  little 
book,  opened  it,  wrote  letter  he  thinks  to  his  mother. 
Saw  her  take  a  little  bag  and  put  some  things  in  it 
belonging  to  him;  placed  the  photograph  beside  her 
on  the  desk.  That’s  hers.  Sent  a  letter  to  Tyson. 
She  hunted  a  little  while  for  her  picture,  sketching. 
He’s  certain  that  the  letter  is  to  his  mother.  She  took 
one  of  George’s  books  and  turned  it  over  and  said : 
“George,  are  you  here  ?  Do  you  see  that  ?”  These  were 
the  very  words.  Then  she  turned  and  went  up  a  short 
flight  of  stairs.  Took  some  things  from  a  drawer, 
came  back,  sat  down  to  the  desk,  and  then  finished 
the  letter.’  Davis  was  the  name  of  Mrs.  Tyson’s 
father. 

“Of  this  set  of  ‘communications,’  Dr.  Hodgson  says : 
‘The  statements  made  as  to  what  Mrs.  Howard  was 
doing  at  the  time  were  not  one  of  them  correct  as  re¬ 
gards  the  particular  time,  tho  they  seem  to  indi¬ 
cate  a  knowledge  of  Mrs.  Howard’s  actions  during 
the  previous  day  and  a  half,  as  appears  from  the  fol¬ 
lowing  statements  made  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Hodgson 
by  Mrs.  Howard: 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  307 

‘  ‘  ‘I  did  none  of  those  things  to-day,  but  all  of  them 
yesterday  afternoon  and  the  evening  before. 

“  ‘Yesterday  afternoon  I  wrote  a  note  to  Mrs.  Tyson 
declining  an  invitation  to  lunch ;  this  I  did  at  a  little 
table.  Later  I  wrote  to  his  mother  at  a  desk,  and  see¬ 
ing  George’s  violets  by  me,  in  their  envelope,  gave 
them  to  my  daughter  to  put  in  my  drawer,  not  “into  a 
book.”  This  is  the  only  inaccuracy  of  detail.  The  day 
before  I  also  wrote  to  his  mother,  putting  his  photo¬ 
graph  before  me  on  the  table  while  I  was  writing.  Did 
“hunt  for  my  picture,”  my  painting  of  him.  What  he 
says  about  the  book  is  also  true,  tho  I  can’t  tell  at 
precisely  what  time  I  did  it,  as  I  was  alone  at  the  time. 
In  all  other  matters  my  memory  is  corroborated  by 
my  daughter,  who  took  the  note  to  Mrs.  T.’s,  and  saw 
me  put  photo  before  me  on  the  desk. 

“  ‘While  writing  to  his  mother  I  did  “go  and  take 
things  from  a  drawer,  came  back  again,  sat  down  to 
the  desk,  and  then  finished  the  letter.”  This  was  the 
letter  finished  at  the  desk,  not  the  one  written  at  a 
table.’ 

“The  extraordinarily  interesting  feature  of  this  ex¬ 
periment  is  the  disparity  in  time  between  the  facts  ex¬ 
pected  and  the  facts  obtained,  the  past  and  not  the 
present  seeming  to  have  been  cognized.”1 

Pelham  is  Displaced  by  the  Imperator  “Controls  ” 

In  1898  Dr.  Hodgson  published  a  second  report  on 
the  Piper  case.  In  the  six  years  that  had  elapsed  since 
the  first  he  had  made  long  and  careful  experimenta¬ 
tion.  Almost  simultaneous  with  his  first  report  had 


Quoted  in  Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  197-9. 


308 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


occurred  the  first  significant  change  of  “controls.” 
Shortly  previous  to  the  second  occurred  a  second 
change.  A  new  group  of  “controls”  appeared,  no 
other  than  W.  Stainton  Moses,  the  English  medium, 
and  a  little  later  the  “Rector,”  “Imperator,”  and  “Doc¬ 
tor”  group  that  we  have  already  noticed  as  being  his 
most  important  “controls.”  Phinuit  had  for  some  time 
ceased  to  appear ;  now  Pelham  was  displaced  as  chief 
control,  and  “Imperator”  took  full  charge  of  the 
“spirit”  side  of  the  case.  Dr.  Hodgson  consulted  with 
him  as  he  might  with  any  other  associate  regarding 
the  various  details  of  the  seances  held  and  experiments 
tried.  “  ‘Imperator’  claimed  that  the  indiscriminate  ex¬ 
perimenting  with  Mrs.  Piper’s  organism  should  stop, 
that  it  was  a  ‘battered  and  worn’  machine,  and  needed 
much  repairing ;  that  ‘he,’  with  his  ‘assistants,’  ‘Doctor,’ 
etc.,  would  repair  it  as  far  as  possible,  and  that  in  the 
meantime  other  persons  must  be  kept  away.  I  then 
for  the  first  time,”  says  Dr.  Hodgson,  “explained  to 
the  normal  Mrs.  Piper  about  W..S.  Moses  and  his  al¬ 
leged  relation  to  ‘Imperator,’  and  she  was  willing  to 
follow  my  advice  and  try  this  new  experiment.”* 1  His 
advice  was  followed,  and  the  wisdom  of  this  course 
appeared  to  be  justified  by  an  again  increased  excel¬ 
lence  of  the  messages  received,  in  clearness,  accuracy 
and  literary  quality.  “Those  who  had  sittings  in  pre¬ 
vious  years,  and  who  have  been  present  since  the 
change  which  I  have  described,  were  all  struck  by  the 
improvement  in  the  clearness  and  coherence  of  the 
communications.”2 


’Quoted  in  Hyslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  129. 

iIbid.,  p.  130. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


309 


In  fact,  by  1898,  so  strong-  was  the  evidence  for  the 
future  life  by  this  time  collected,  that  Dr.  Hodgson, 
in  his  second  report,  felt  compelled  to  come  out  defi¬ 
nitely  a  believer  in  spirits. 

At  about  this  time  a  new  investigator  became  inter¬ 
ested  in  Mrs.  Piper,  Dr.  Hyslop,  then  Professor  of 
Philosophy  at  Columbia  University.  Cooperating  with 
Dr.  Hodgson,  he  held  numerous  sittings  during  the 
following  two  years.  At  the  beginning  of  his  inquiry 
every  effort  was  made  to  conceal  his  real  identity  from 
the  medium.  “Driving  to  her  residence  in  a  closed 
carriage,  he  donned  a  mask  before  entering  her  pres¬ 
ence,  was  introduced  to  her  as  ‘Mr.  Smith,’  and  while 
she  was  in  her  normal  state  maintained  complete  si¬ 
lence.  From  the  outset  he  obtained  messages  that 
left  him  in  a  state  of  bewilderment,  relating  as  they 
did  to  occurrences  transpiring  years  earlier,  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  careers  of  dead  relatives  and  friends.”1 
A  number  of  instances  of  these  messages  will  be  given 
in  the  succeeding  article.  Sufficient  here  to  state  that 
in  the  end  Dr.  Hyslop,  like  Dr.  Hodgson,  became  con¬ 
vinced  of  their  genuinely  spiritual  origin. 

I  have  given  one  or  two  examples  of  prophecy 
among  those  quoted.  The  record  has  many  more,  how¬ 
ever,  some  much  more  complex  and  remarkable.  Here 
is  another  simple  instance,  quoted  by  Dr.  Hyslop: 
“Miss  W.  says:  ‘In  the  spring  of  1888,  an  acquaint¬ 
ance,  S.,  was  suffering  torturing  disease.  There  was 
no  hope  of  relief,  and  only  distant  prospect  of  release. 
A  consultation  of  physicians  predicted  continued  phys- 


'See  Bruce:  The  Riddle  of  Personality,  p.  133. 


310 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


ical  suffering  and  probably  mental  decay,  continuing 
perhaps  thru  a  series  of  years.  S.’s  daughter,  worn 
with  anxiety  and  care,  was  in  danger  of  breaking  in 
health.  “How  can  I  get  her  away  for  a  little  rest?”  I 
asked  Dr.  Phinuit,  May  24,  1888.  “She  will  not  leave 
her  father,”  was  the  reply,  “but  his  suffering  is  not  for 
long.  The  doctors  are  wrong  about  that.  There  will 
be  a  change  soon,  and  he  will  pass  out  of  the  body  be¬ 
fore  the  summer  is  over.”  His  death  occurred  in 
June,  1888.’ 7,1 

Phinuit  and  the  other  controls  were  oftentimes  asked 
for  information  unknown  to  the  questioner,  as,  for 
example,  the  location  of  lost  articles.  Sometimes  he 
was  able  to  tell ;  sometimes  he  was  not.  Certain  of 
these  failures  are  as  interesting  from  a  psychical  stand¬ 
point  as  successes  would  have  been. 

“March  2,  1887,  I  was  asked  by  my  mother  to  in¬ 
quire  the  whereabouts  of  two  silver  cups,  heirlooms, 
which  she  had  misplaced.  Said  Dr.  Phinuit,  ‘They  are 
in  your  house,  in  a  room  higher  up  than  your  sleeping- 
room,  in  what  looks  to  me  the  back  part  of  the  house, 
but  very  likely  I  am  turned  around.  You’ll  find  there 
a  large  chest  filled  with  clothing,  and  at  the  very  bot¬ 
tom  of  the  chest  are  the  cups.  Annie  (my  mother’s 
name)  placed  them  there,  and  will  remember  it.’  Re¬ 
turning  home,  I  went  to  the  room  on  the  third  floor,  at 
the  front  of  the  house,  but  remotest  from  the  stairway, 
found  the  chest  (of  which  I  knew)  and  the  contents 
(of  which  I  was  ignorant)  both  as  described,  but  no 
silver.  Reporting  the  message  to  my  mother,  I  learned 


Quoted  in  Hyslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  172. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


311 


that  she  had  at  one  time  kept  the  cups  in  that  chest, 
but  more  recently  had  removed  them.”1 

But  one  more  fact  is  needed  to  bring  the  history  of 
the  Piper  case  down  to  date.  Shortly  after  Dr.  Hys- 
lop’s  connection  with  the  case,  psychical  research 
seemed  to  have  lost  one  of  its  most  valued  and  enthusi¬ 
astic  workers  by  the  death  of  Dr.  Hodgson.  But  with¬ 
in  a  few  months,  behold  the  “spirit”  of  Dr.  Hodgson 
himself  appearing  as  a  “control”  of  Mrs.  Piper.  And 
as  a  fact,  he  seems  now  to  have  ousted  both  “Pelham” 
and  the  “Imperator”  group ;  and  directs  the  spirit  side 
of  this  unique  system  of  communication  in  quite  as 
masterly  a  manner  as  he  directed  our  side  when  in 
the  body.  Knowing  exactly  the  kind  of  proof  of  his 
spiritual  existence  desired  by  his  old  associates,  he 
has  done  his  best  to  supply  it,  and  with  such  success 
that  Dr.  Hyslop  now  seems  absolutely  certain  of  spirit 
communication,  and  the  other  scientific  men  who  are 
studying  the  case  are  either  genuinely  puzzled  or  on 
the  verge  of  conviction. 

Such  is  Mrs.  Piper’s  psychic  history  as  a  conserva¬ 
tive  spiritualist  might  relate  it,  a  life  story  certainly 
unique  in  human  experience.  Is  it  true?  That  is  the 
great  question.  We  have  messages,  that  is  certain ;  but 
where  do  they  come  from?  We  have  facts;  that  is 
unquestioned;  but  what  is  the  explanation  of  them? 
If  “spirits”  do  not  control  Mrs.  Piper,  who  or  what 
does  ?  Let  us  see. 


‘Quoted  in  Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  168. 


“PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  HAS  BRIDGED  THE  CHASM” 


“No  part  of  the  unclassified  residuum  [of  human  knowledge] 
has  usually  been  treated  with  a  more  contemptuous  scientific 
disregard  than  the  mass  of  phenomena  generally  called  mysti¬ 
cal.  Physiology  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  them.  Orthodox 
psychology  turns  its  back  upon  them.  Medicine  sweeps  them 
out,  or  at  most,  when  in  an  anecdotal  vein,  records  a  few  of 
them  as  “effects  of  the  imagination,”  a  phrase  of  mere  dis¬ 
missal,  whose  meaning,  in  this  connection,  it  is  impossible  to 
make  precise.  All  the  while,  however,  the  phenomena  are 
there,  lying  broadcast  over  the  surface  of  history.  No  matter 
where  you  open  its  pages,  you  find  things  recorded  under  the 
name  of  divinations,  inspirations,  demoniacal  possessions,  ap¬ 
paritions,  trances,  ecstasies,  miraculous  healings  and  produc¬ 
tions  of  disease,  and  occult  powers  possessed  by  peculiar  indi¬ 
viduals  over  persons  and  things  in  their  neighborhood.  We 
suppose  that  “mediumship”  originated  in  Rochester,  N.  Y., 
and  animal  magnetism  with  Mesmer;  but  once  look  behind 
the  pages  of  official  history,  in  personal  memoirs,  legal  docu¬ 
ments,  and  popular  narratives  and  books  of  anecdotes,  and 
you  will  find  that  there  was  never  a  time  when  these  things 
were  not  reported  just  as  abundantly  as  now.  .  .  . 

“I  have  myself  .  .  .  collected  hundreds  of  cases  of  hallu¬ 
cination  in  healthy  persons.  The  result  is  to  make  me  feel 
that  we  all  have  potentially  a  “subliminal”  self,  which  may 
make  at  any  time  irruption  into  our  ordinary  lives.  At  its 
lowest,  it  is  only  the  depository  of  our  forgotten  memories;  at 
its  highest,  we  do  not  know  what  it  is  at  all.  Take,  for  in¬ 
stance,  a  series  of  cases.  During  sleep,  many  persons  have 
something  in  them  which  measures  the  flight  of  time  better 
than  the  waking  self  does.  It  wakes  them  at  a  pre-appointed 
hour;  it  acquaints  them  with  the  moment  when  they  first 

812 


Professor  William  James 

Professor  of  Psychology  at  Harvard  University. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


313 


awake.  It  may  produce  an  hallucination,  as  in  a  lady  who 
informs  me  that  at  the  instant  of  waking  she  has  a  vision  of 
a  watch-face  with  the  hands  pointing  (as  she  has  often  veri¬ 
fied)  to  the  exact  time.  It  may  be  a  feeling  that  some  physio¬ 
logical  period  has  elapsed;  but,  whatever  it  is,  it  is  sub¬ 
conscious. 

“A  subconscious  something  may  also  preserve  experiences  to 
which  we  do  not  openly  attend.  A  lady  taking  her  lunch  in 
town  finds  herself  without  her  purse.  Instantly  a  sense  comes 
over  her  of  rising  from  the  breakfast-table  and  hearing  her 
purse  drop  upon  the  floor.  On  reaching  home  she  finds  noth¬ 
ing  under  the  table,  but  summons  the  servant  to  say  where 
she  has  put  the  purse.  The  servant  produces  it,  saying: 
“How  did  you  know  where  it  was?  You  rose  and  left  the 
room  as  though  you  didn’t  know  you  had  dropped  it.” 

“The  same  subconscious  something  may  recollect  what  we 
have  forgotten.  A  lady  accustomed  to  taking  salicylate  of 
soda  for  muscular  rheumatism  wakes  one  early  winter  morn¬ 
ing  with  an  aching  neck.  In  the  twilight  she  takes  what  she 
supposes  is  her  customary  powder  from  a  drawer,  dissolves  it 
in  a  glass  of  water,  and  is  about  to  drink  it  down,  when  she 
feels  a  sharp  slap  on  her  shoulder  and  hears  a  voice  in  her 
ear  saying:  “Taste  it!”  On  examination  she  finds  she  has  got 
a  morphine  powder  by  mistake.  The  natural  interpretation 
is  that  a  sleeping  memory  of  the  morphine  powders  awoke  in 
this  quasi-explosive  way. 

“A  like  explanation  offers  itself  as  most  plausible  for  the 
following  case.  A  lady  with  a  little  time  to  catch  the  train, 
and  the  expressman  about  to  call,  is  excitedly  looking  for  the 
lost  key  of  a  packed  trunk.  Hurrying  upstairs  with  a  bunch  of 
keys,  proved  useless,  in  her  hand,  she  hears  an  “objective” 
voice  say  distinctly,  “Try  the  key  of  the  cake-box.”  Being 
tried,  it  fits.  This  also  may  well  have  been  a  case  of  for¬ 
gotten  experience. 

“Now  the  effect  is  doubtless  due  to  the  same  hallucinatory 
mechanism;  but  the  source  is  less  easily  assigned  as  we  ascend 
the  scale  of  cases.  A  lady,  for  instance,  goes  after  breakfast 
to  see  about  one  of  her  servants  who  has  become  ill  over 
night.  She  is  startled  at  distinctly  reading  over  the  bedroom 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


SU 

door  in  gilt  letters  the  word  “smallpox.”  The  doctor  is  sent 
for,  and  ere  long  pronounces  smallpox  to  be  the  disease,  al¬ 
though  the  lady  says,  “The  thought  of  the  girl  having  small¬ 
pox  never  entered  my  mind  till  I  saw  the  apparent  inscrip¬ 
tion.”  Then  come  other  cases  of  warning,  for  example,  that 
of  a  youth  sitting  in  a  wagon  under  a  shed,  who  suddenly 
hears  his  dead  mother’s  voice  say,  “Stephen,  get  away  from 
here  quick!”  and  jumps  out  just  in  time  to  see  the  shed  roof 
fall.  .  .  . 

“It  is  the  intolerance  of  science  for  such  phenomena,  her 
peremptory  denial  either  of  their  existence  or  of  their  sig¬ 
nificance  (except  as  proofs  of  man’s  absolute  innate  folly),  that 
has  set  science  so  far  apart  from  the  common  sympathies  of  the 
race.  I  confess  that  it  is  on  this,  its  humanizing  mission,  that 
the  society’s  (the  S.  P.  R.)  best  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  our 
generation  seems  to  depend.  It  has  restored  continuity  to 
history.  It  has  shown  some  reasonable  basis  for  the  super¬ 
stitious  aberrations  of  the  foretime.  It  has  bridged  the  chasm, 
healed  the  hideous  rift  that  science,  taken  in  a  certain  narrow 
way,  has  shot  into  the  human  world.” 

! — Professor  William  James. 


—[From  “The  Will  to  Believe.”] 


CHAPTER  XIV 


TELEPATHY  vs.  SPIRITUALISM 

I  have  outlined  the  most  famous  case  in  the  history 
of  spiritualism.  Now,  what  of  it?  What  does  it 
amount  to? 

What  tests  shall  we  impose  upon  alleged  spirit  mes¬ 
sages  which  shall  seem  to  afford  proof  of  their  authen¬ 
ticity?  Here  is  the  medium,  lying  in  a  trance,  with  her 
hand  nervously  traveling  across  a  sheet  of  paper  and 
inscribing  thereon  statements  that  claim  to  come  from 
intelligences  in  another  world.  They  write  coherently ; 
answer  questions ;  apparently  make  every  effort,  so 
far  as  they  can  in  writing,  to  have  us  believe  the 
writing  is  what  they  say  it  is.  How  are  we  to  know  ? 

We  have  two  very  strong,  if  not  conclusive  tests : 

1.  The  writing  must  give  us  information  which  ap¬ 
parently  could  not  be  obtained  thru  any  but  a  super¬ 
normal  source. 

2.  The  facts  given  must  in  some  wav  prove  the 
personal  identity  of  the  sender. 

Let  me  be  more  specific.  To  take  up  the  first  ques¬ 
tion,  what  information  will  prove  for  these  “messages” 
a  supernormal  origin?  At  first  blush  we  might  say: 
“Let  the  spirit  tell  us  something  about  itself,  about 
what  death  is,  about  what  ‘heaven’  is  like,  the  condi¬ 
tions  existing  there  in  the  realm  where  it  is.  That  is 

S16 


816 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


surely  something  no  one  on  earth  would  know.”  Yes, 
very  true. 

But  even  supposing,  as  will  be  explained  later,  that 
the  spirit  could  tell  us  these  things,  don’t  you  see  no 
one  on  earth  would  know ,  either,  whether  it  was  tell¬ 
ing  us  the  truth  or  not ?  The  medium  herself  might 
be  making  it  up,  as  we  say,  “out  of  whole  cloth” ;  and 
we  could  not  say  it  was  true  or  false.  In  other  words, 
we  must  be  able  to  verify  the  facts  obtained. 

I  will  give  an  example  of  what  I  mean.  If  the  spirit 
gives  us  a  statement  about  something  done  by  him  on 
earth,  and  surely  known  to  no  one  else  on  earth  but 
him,  and  on  investigation  we  find  that  his  statement 
is  correct,  that  seems  strong  evidence  of  a  supernormal 
origin  of  the  writing,  doesn’t  it? 

There  are  many  such  cases  in  the  history  of  medium- 
ship,  carefully  attested,  and  some  very  striking. 

A  man,  for  instance — and  this  was  a  test  experiment 
— wrote  a  short  letter,  sealing  it,  and  showing  it  to  no 
other  living  soul.  Some  months  after  his  death  his 
mother  received  an  alleged  message  from  him — this 
time,  as  it  happened,  by  table-tipping — which  spelled 
out  the  entire  contents  of  this  test  letter.  The  letter 
was  then  unsealed,  and  its  contents  found  to  be  exactly 
what  the  spirit  said  they  were. 

This  is  but  one  example  out  of  many,  where  facts 
were  given  by  the  spirits  which  were  known  neither 
to  the  medium,  to  those  present,  nor,  in  fact,  to  any 
living  person ;  yet  on  investigation  the  facts  were  found 
to  be  correct.  This  would  seem  rather  a  stumbling- 
block  to  the  opponent  of  the  spirit  theory;  we  shall 
see  later  what  he  has  to  say. 

In  the  second  place,  we  said  that  these  spirits  must 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


317 


prove  their  identity.  The  man  in  the  above  case  proved 
his,  in  a  way,  by  telling  the  contents  of  that  letter  that 
he  had  himself  written.  Yet  the  problem  of  proving 
identity  by  writing  is  not  as  easy  as  you  might  at  first 
think.  Here  is  one  of  the  older  examples  of  this  proof, 
reported  by  William  Stainton  Moses: 

“A  spirit,  who  claimed  to  be  an  old  American  sol¬ 
dier,  communicated  to  him  (Mr.  Moses  himself  was 
the  medium)  at  Isle  of  Wight,  England.  The  spirit 
said  that  his  name  was  Abraham  Florentine,  and  that 
he  fought  on  the  American  side  in  the  War  of  1812, 
and  that  he  had  lately  died  in  Brooklyn,  U.  S.  A.,  his 
home.  He  gave  his  age  and  his  time  of  service  in  the 
war.  Rev.  Stainton  Moses  declared  that  he  had  never 
heard  of  the  existence  of  such  a  man,  but  was  so  im¬ 
pressed  by  the  truthfulness  of  the  spirit  that  he  com¬ 
municated  the  facts  to  an  English  paper,  and  requested 
American  papers  to  copy.  The  case  was  taken  up  by 
Epes  Sargent  in  America,  and  hunted  down,  and  it 
was  found  that  all  that  this  spirit  said  about  himself 
was  truth.”1 

This  seems  rather  conclusive,  doesn’t  it?  But  there 
are  faults  in  it,  nevertheless,  some  of  which  I  shall 
point  out  later.  Dr.  Hyslop  says  “the  task  of  proving 
identity  ...  is  a  gigantic  one,”  and  surely  he  should 
know.  Let  us  imagine  for  a  moment  that  you  are 
writing  to  a  friend — on  a  typewriter,  let  us  say,  so 
that  the  question  of  handwriting  does  not  enter — and 
you  wish  to  prove  to  him  that  it  is  you,  John  Jones, 
who  are  writing  to  him.  How  shall  you  do  it?  You 
would  not  write  about  philosophy  and  death  and 


'Funk:  The  Widow’s  Mite,  p.  446. 


318 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


heaven;  if  you  did,  he  would  say,  “That  doesn’t  prove 
to  me  you  are  John  Jones;  any  one  could  write  that.” 
But  supposing,  instead  of  philosophy,  you  wrote,  “I’ll 
show  you  that  I  am  John  Jones :  do  you  remember  last 
week,  Wednesday,  as  I  was  walking  in  the  country 
with  you,  I  reached  over  and  brushed  a  caterpillar  off 
your  coat?”  “There,”  your  friend  will  say,  “there’s 
proof  that  this  is  John  Jones  that  is  writing.  No  living 
soul  knows  about  that  little  incident  except  the  two 
of  us — and  the  caterpillar.” 

Now  from  this  you  can  understand,  I  think,  why  we 
find  that  the  surest  proof  of  personal  identity  is  found 
in  little,  trivial,  seemingly  unimportant  facts.  The 
medium  might  have  found  out  that  your  father  died 
of  apoplexy ;  but  she  probably  would  not  know  that  ten 
years  before,  in  a  different  city,  one  afternoon,  on  the 
front  porch,  he  broke  an  apple  in  two  for  you  and 
Johnnie.  In  other  words,  this  fact,  tho  trivial,  is 
stronger  proof  than  the  other  that  the  spirit  writer  is 
your  father. 

We  have  strong  statements  of  belief  like  that  of 
William  T.  Stead.  “I  feel  it  impossible  to  resist  the 
conclusion  that  these  communications  are  what  they 
profess  to  be — real  letters  from  the  real  Julia,  who  is 
not  dead,  but  gone  before.  I  know,  after  five  years’ 
almost  daily  intercourse  with  her  thru  my  automatic 
hand,  that  I  am  conversing  with  an  intelligence  at 
least  as  keen  as  my  own,  a  personality  as  distinctly 
defined,  and  a  friend  as  true  and  tender,  as  I  have  ever 
known.  From  those  who  scout  the  possibility  of  such 
a  phenomenon  I  would  merely  ask  the  admission  that 
in  this  case  their  favorite  theory  of  intentional  fraud, 
at  least  on  the  part  of  the  medium,  is  excluded  by  the 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  319 

fact  that  these  messages  were  written  by  my  own  hand, 
no  other  visible  person  being  present.” 

But  we  have  the  even  stronger  evidence  of  “identity” 
in  thousands  of  trivial  incidents  like  those  I  have  men¬ 
tioned.  Dr.  Hyslop  says :  “In  one  of  my  own  sit¬ 
tings  the  communicator  twice  exclaimed  (so  to  speak, 
as  the  message  came  in  automatic  writing),  ‘Give  me 
my  hat!’  just  as  he  left  off  communicating.  This  lan¬ 
guage  had  no  connection  with  the  rest  of  the  com¬ 
munication,  but,  strange  enough,  my  inquiries  brought 
out  accidentally  that  the  communicator,  in  life,  was 
accustomed  to  use  this  very  expression  in  situations 
like  this,  when  suddenly  called  to  go  outdoors.”1 

Dr.  Hyslop  also  mentions  another  example  occurring 
in  a  sitting  in  which  an  uncle  of  his  claimed  to  be  the 
communicator.  “He  began  with  an  announcement  of 
his  name.  He  said,  ‘I  am  James  McClellan,  and  you 
are  my  namesake.’  I  was  the  namesake  of  this  uncle. 
He  added,  ‘I  always  despised  the  name  of  Jim.’  This 
I  did  not  know,  but  I  felt  the  statement  was  quite  prob¬ 
able,  as  we  always  called  him  ‘Uncle  Mack.’  On  in¬ 
quiry  of  his  two  living  daughters,  one  of  them  did  not 
know  whether  this  was  true  or  not.  But  the  other  re¬ 
called  it  distinctly,  and  mentioned  several  instances 
in  which  her  father  and  mother  had  endeavored  to  cor¬ 
rect  the  habit  of  the  neighbors  of  calling  him  Jim.”2 

Here  is  an  example  observed  by  “Miss  W.”  at  an¬ 
other  Piper  sitting.  “T.  was  a  Western  man,  and  the 
localism  of  using  like  as  a  conjunction  clung  to  him, 
despite  my  frequent  corrections,  all  his  life.  At  my 


1 Harper's  Magazine,  March,  1901. 

'Ibid.,  June,  1900. 


320 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


sitting  on  December  16,  1886,  he  remarked,  ‘If  you 
could  see  it  like  I  do.’  Forgetful,  for  the  instant,  of 
the  changed  conditions,  I  promptly  repeated,  ‘ As  I  do.’ 
‘Ah,’  came  the  response,  ‘that  sounds  natural.  That 
sounds  like  old  times.’  ”* 

The  “Telepathic  Hypothesis” 

We  have  already  hinted  that  in  this  explanation  of 
the  phenomena  of  mediumship,  when  we  have  elimi¬ 
nated  fraud  and  chance,  we  are  still  far  from  a  solu¬ 
tion  of  the  problem.  In  fact,  our  difficulties  have  but 
just  begun. 

But  it  may  well  be  asked,  If  these  mediumistic  mes¬ 
sages  do  not  come  from  “spirits,”  where  can  they  come 
from?  What  possible  other  explanation  is  there  for 
them?  The  spiritualist  would  certainly  seem  to  have 
his  case  pretty  well  proved.  Let  us  see. 

The  disbeliever  begins  by  admitting  that  the  medium 
does  have  messages  which  she  believes  are  genuine ; 
but  he  denies  vigorously  that  spirits  have  anything  to 
do  with  them.  He  believes  that  they,  one  and  all,  are 
evolved  unconsciously  by  the  medium’s  own  subliminal 
self.  He  believes  that  this  subliminal  self  can  also 
unconsciously  imitate  every  phase  of  personal  identity, 
and  do  it  so  cunningly  and  completely  as  to  deceive  the 
most  expert  investigator.  He  believes  that  all  the  al¬ 
leged  “spirit”  messages  are  telepathic  in  their  origin, 
and  are  explicable  simply  and  solely  by  telepathy.  This 
is  why  Dr.  Hyslop  called  the  task  of  proving  the  “per¬ 
sonal  identity”  of  the  spirits  a  “gigantic  one.”  No 
wonder ! 

Here  we  have,  then,  plainly,  two  theories  to  which 

'Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  pp.  167-8. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


321 


the  spiritistic  problem  has,  within  the  last  few  years, 
narrowed  down — telepathy  vs.  spiritism.  Which  is  cor¬ 
rect? 

But  plainly,  a  conception  of  telepathy  broad  enough 
to  cover  mediumistic  communications  must  be  some¬ 
thing  more  than  the  telepathy  we  have  so  far  consid¬ 
ered.  We  have,  so  far,  spoken  of  telepathy,  you  re¬ 
member,  as  the  “reading”  by  some  person  of  what  an¬ 
other  person  is  thinking  at  the  time.  All  our  experi¬ 
mental  proof  bears  out  this  simple  theory. 

There  is  some  evidence,  however,  in  support  (i) 
of  a  telepathy  in  which  other  persons  are  concerned 
besides  simply  a  sender  and  percipient;  and  (2)  a  sort 
of  delayed  percipience,  in  which  the  percipient  is  aware, 
not  of  the  thoughts  of  the  agent  at  that  moment,  but 
of  the  thoughts  he  had  hours,  or  possibly  days,  or  even 
years,  before. 

Dr.  Hudson  is  the  most  enthusiastic  advocate  of  this 
multiple  telepathy;  that  is,  telepathy  involving  more 
than  two  people ;  and  he  gives  the  following  case  as  a 
typical  example; 

“I  once  hypnotized  a  lady,  and  asked  her  to  de¬ 
scribe  my  home,  which  she  knew  nothing  of.  She  de¬ 
scribed  everything  correctly,  even  a  huge  mastiff  lying 
on  a  bearskin  rug  on  the  library  floor.  But  doubt  was 
thrown  upon  her  lucidity  when  she  described  the  li¬ 
brary  desk  as  being  covered  with  a  white  cloth,  and 
said  that  a  lady  was  sitting  at  the  desk,  ‘doing  some¬ 
thing’  that  she  could  not  clearly  make  out.  As  my 
desk  is  covered  with  a  black  cloth,  and  as  ladies  sel¬ 
dom  work  at  it,  I  regarded  the  description  as  an  effort 
at  guessing.  But  on  my  return  home  I  learned  that 
my  wife  had  been  ‘doing  something’  with  pulverized 


322 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


sugar,  and  had  covered  the  table  with  newspapers.  As 
that  was  the  only  time  in  the  long  history  of  my  library 
desk  that  it  had  been  so  covered,  or  so  employed,  I  can¬ 
not  ascribe  the  phenomenon  to  coincidence.”1 

Now  I  admit  the  possibility  of  multiple  telepathy ; 
but  I  confess  I  fail  to  see  how  this  is  necessarily  an 
example  of  it.  We  do  not  need  to  assume  that  the 
medium  did  otherwise  than  to  read  directly  from  Mrs. 
Hudson’s  mind  by  simple  telepathy.  Or  another  pos¬ 
sible  explanation  is  that  the  medium  saw  the  room 
herself,  clairvoyantly,  telepathy  not  entering  at  all. 

In  a  similar  way  the  “Godfrey  case,”  tho  much  quot¬ 
ed,  does  not  seem  a  typical  case  of  delayed  percipi- 
ence,  for  other  factors  enter  in.  This  was  an  instance 
in  which  a  clergyman  endeavored,  at  10.45  p.m.,  to  pro¬ 
ject,  telepathically,  an  apparition  of  himself  to  a  friend. 
His  experiment  succeeds ;  but  the  “ghost”  is  not  seen 
by  his  friend  till  3.30  a.m.  This,  however,  is  rather 
an  example  of  self-projection  than  telepathy;  and  to 
discuss  it  would  get  us  off  into  still  deeper  waters. 

In  spite,  however,  of  this  breakdown  of  the  typical 
examples  of  each  phenomena,  most  psychic  researchers 
admit  that  there  are  cases  which  clearly  point  to  a 
delayed  percipience.  Perhaps  the  reader  does  not  grasp 
fully,  at  first  thought,  what  a  wonderful  enlargement 
of  the  powers  of  telepathy  this  implies.  It  means  that 
we  may  unknowingly  extract  a  thought  from  another 
man’s  consciousness ;  that  that  man  may  die ;  and  then, 
that  hours,  days,  or  even  years,  afterward,  that  thought 
may  flash  up  from  our  subliminal  self,  where  it  has 


'Myers:  Do  We  Survive  Death ?  National  Review,  Octo¬ 
ber,  1898. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


323 


lain  so  long,  appearing  then  to  our  every-day  con¬ 
sciousness  as  a  veritable  “message”  from  the  dead ! 
“For  where  else  could  it  come  from?”  you  quite  natu¬ 
rally  ask.  “He  is  the  only  one  who  knew  that  fact, 
and  he  died  without  telling  a  soul.” 

Such  a  wonderful  enlargement  of  the  powers  of 
telepathy  may  seem  more  incredible  to  many  than  even 
a  belief  in  spirits.  Yet  even  the  ardent  spiritualist  must 
admit  that  other  observed  telepathic  phenomena  give 
some  ground  for  the  assumption.  In  any  event,  the 
possibility  renders  indefinite  what  Myers  considered 
the  final  and  perfect  proof  of  spiritualism :  namely, 
the  receipt  of  a  spirit  message  giving  the  contents  of 
a  sealed  letter  known  only  to  a  person  who  has  died. 
And  the  spiritualist  has  to  admit,  too,  that  probably  a 
large  portion  of  alleged  spirit  messages  do  have  a  tel¬ 
epathic  origin.  He  admits  that  facts  once  known  to 
the  medium — but  which,  now  forgotten,  she  says  with 
perfect  honesty  she  does  not  know — lie  down  there  in 
her  subliminal  memory  till  some  chance  working  of 
the  trance  state  brings  them  as  a  bona  fide  “message.” 

Or  she  may  never  have  known  the  fact,  but  it  may 
be  known  to  some  one  present  in  the  company.  And 
here  again,  unknown  to  the  waking  consciousness  of 
the  medium,  her  subliminal  self,  in  some  mysterious 
telepathic  wav,  reaches  out  and  gains  that  fact  from 
the  sitter’s  mind,  and  the  sitter  hears  it  delivered  thru 
the  entranced  lips  of  the  medium  as  a  veritable  mes¬ 
sage  from  the  dead. 

Very  wonderful  and  inexplicable  this,  you  sav,  and 
hard  to  believe.  Yes;  but  is  it  as  wonderful  and  inex¬ 
plicable  and  hard  to  believe  as  a  message  from  a  person 
in  the  other  world?  As  a  fact,  it  is  to  that  last  ques- 


324 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


tion,  or  a  similar  one,  that  a  final  analysis  of  the  prob¬ 
lem  finally  brings  you:  which  of  two  things,  judging 
the  data  at  hand,  do  you  think  more  incredible  ?  Proof 
is  here  but  a  relative  term.  The  telepathist  has  not  yet 
succeeded  in  proving  his  opponent  wrong.  Even  Frank 
Podmore,  the  most  noted  anti-spiritualist,  admits: 
“Whether  the  belief  in  the  intercourse  with  spirits  is 
well  founded  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  no  critic  has  yet 
succeeded  in  demonstrating  the  inadequacy  of  the  evi¬ 
dence  upon  which  the  spiritualists  rely.”1  And  we 
must  always  remember  that  men  like  Myers  and  Hys- 
lop  and  Hodgson,  who  have  examined  the  phenomena 
most  closely,  and  weighed  the  data  most  carefully,  are 
strong  in  their  spiritualistic  conclusions. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  spiritualist  has  not  proved 
that  telepathy  is  not  an  explanation  for  all  spiritistic 
phenomena.  We  may  have  to  stretch  our  conception 
of  telepathy  a  lot  to  make  it  cover  all  cases,  but  the 
telepathist  does  not  scruple  to  stretch  it. 

Arguments  for  the  Telepathic  Hypothesis 

Having  seen  the  possibility  of  the  telepathic  explana¬ 
tion  of  mediumship,  let  us  examine  specifically  some  of 
the  reasons  advanced  in  support  of  it. 

I.  The  character  of  the  mistakes,  confusions  and 
omissions  are  just  such  as  a  telepathic  origin  would 
presuppose.  Genuine  telepathy  is  a  groping  for  facts, 
many  of  which  it  hits,  some  of  which  it  does  not.  An 
examination  of  any  record  of  telepathic  experiments 
will  show  this.  Compare,  for  instance,  the  ability  of 
the  percipient  in  Dr.  Guthrie’s  experiments  to  gain 


‘Podmore:  Modern  Spiritualism. 


cf  c/fomt 

cJe.  irecc oc  tent nr-  onu  p'yomeJJt 
mens  ttC .Comp o-en Cl aaotd  muP 
te  ,  Cju  'duyurd'foLu-  a  ceZ  conTa-ifT 
jje.  <iJo7<e  d'^foe  d'-une  Qv-ctnde 

eV  does  m  ' cidxbte in. ;  -  f  - 


r~  <Xe  -be ecu  co ufa 


I.  Fragment  of  handwriting  of  “Leopold,”  one  of  the  medium’s 
alleged  “controls.”  Automatically  written  by  the  medium  while  in 
spontaneous  hemisomnambulism.  Compare  this  with  the  medium’s 
normal  handwriting  below. 


ern/t* 

• 

Ox/Zg-  aifa7lJ 

Q**~'i*P  ‘n.fGm- 


ifen-y 

"&L.-  <y?Ont^ 
Wrwfivtov)  CA-l2 CL 


n9 


cJn 


TT.  Normal  handwriting  of  Mile.  Smith. 

Handwriting  of  the  Medium.  Mile.  Smith,  to  Show  Difference 
Between  Normal  and  Alleged  “Controlled”  Writing 
(Reproduced  from  Flournoy’s  “From  India  to  the  Planet  Mars.”) 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


325 


a  complete  picture  of  the  object  with  the  ability  of 
the  percipient  (the  medium)  in  the  cases  following. 
Place  the  two  series  side  by  side,  and  note  how  strik¬ 
ingly  similar  is  the  effect  produced. 

The  first  example  is  from  one  of  Mrs.  Piper’s  Eng¬ 
lish  sittings.  At  another  sitting  mention  was  made  of 
two  Florences,  with  the  “statement  that  one  paints  and 
the  other  does  not ;  that  one  is  married  and  the  other 
is  not;  and  that  the  reference  was  to  the  ‘one  doesn’t 
paint  who  is  married.’  It  happened  that  Professor 
Lodge  had  two  cousins  by  the  name  of  Florence,  one 
married  and  abroad,  as  indicated  in  the  ‘communica¬ 
tion,’  and  who  does  not  paint,  and  one  who  paints  and 
is  not  married.  In  connection  with  the  former,  Phin- 
uit  had  said  that  she  had  a  friend,  Whiteman.  This 
was  all  unintelligible  to  Professor  Lodge,  except  the 
names  of  his  cousins  and  their  relation  to  painting  and 
marriage,  and  he  inquired  of  one  of  them,  to  find  that 
she  had  a  lady  friend  by  the  name  of  Mrs.  Whyte- 
head,  recently  married,  and  he  conjectures  that  the 
allusion  to  something  as  the  matter  with  her  head  was 
a  confusion  in  Phinuit’s  mind  by  the  termination  of 
the  name.  Otherwise  the  allusions  were  all  correct.”1 

The  telepathist  also  points  out  that  many  of  those 
trivial  proofs  of  identity,  on  whose  very  triviality  the 
spiritualist  lays  great  stress — like  the  “Give  me  my 
hat!”  incident  of  the  Hyslop  case,  already  quoted — 
sound  more  like  remembered  words  lurking,  long  for¬ 
gotten,  down  in  the  subliminal  self.  Similar  is  this 
example,2  noted  by  - :  “March  I,  1888,  he  re- 


1Hyslop :  Science  and  a  Future  Life,  pp.  142-3. 

'Ibid.,  p.  168. 


326 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


quested,  ‘Throw  off  this  rug/  referring  to  a  loose,  fur- 
lined  cloak  which  I  wore.  I  noted  the  word  as  a  sin¬ 
gular  designation  for  such  a  garment,  and  weeks  after 
recalled  that  he  had  once,  while  living,  spoken  of  it 
in  the  same  way  as  I  threw  it  over  him  on  the  lounge.” 

Secondly,  says  the  telepathist,  the  alleged  spirit  does 
not  give  evidence  of  all  it  should  know.  Why,  when  it 
is  directly  using  the  medium’s  hand,  so  much  so  that 
the  handwriting  alters ,  must  it  be  limited  to  the  knowl¬ 
edge  existent  in  the  waking  consciousness  of  the  me¬ 
dium?  The  spirit  may  have  known  German;  Mrs. 
Piper  does  not.  Why,  if  it  is  itself  writing,  must  it 
obey  Mrs.  Piper’s  limitations,  and  be  unable  to  write 
German?  Assuredly,  says  the  telepathist,  this  limita¬ 
tion  seems  suspicious ;  these  messages  would  seem  to 
have  an  origin  no  further  back  than  Mrs.  Piper’s  own 
knowledge  and  consciousness. 

Now,  it  is  true  that  this  seems  a  rather  valid  argu¬ 
ment;  for,  barring  a  few  Kaffir  words  given  by  Miss 
Browne,  and  a  little  Italian  and  one  or  two  Hawaiian 
words  uttered  by  Mrs.  Piper,  the  evidence  seems  to 
show  that  the  spirit  must  limit  itself  to  its  medium’s 
mental  capacity. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  remember  that 
telepathy  does  not  give  us  an  iota  more  evidence  on 
its  side.  A  language  unknown  to  the  percipient  can¬ 
not  be  received  telepathically,  any  more  than  such  a 
message  can  be  transmitted  by  a  medium. 

Objections  to  the  Telepathic  Hypothesis 

Before  leaving  the  telepathic  hypothesis,  we  would 
hardly  be  fair  to  the  spiritualist  if  we  did  not  say  some¬ 
thing  upon  the  other  side. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


327 


He  brings  up  three  main  objections  to  this  telepathic 
explanation,  so  closely  allied  that  I  shall  treat  them 
together.  All  turn  upon  the  fact  that  the  “controls” 
are  exceedingly  able  in  the  selection  of  the  facts  most 
likely  to  prove  their  identity;  this,  says  the  spiritist, 
involves  for  the  telepathist  these  assumptions :  ( i ) 

The  power  to  select;  (2)  an  apparent  omniscience ; 
that  is,  an  ability,  if  the  phenomena  are  telepathic,  to 
draw  upon  any  mind  in  the  world  for  any  fact;  (3) 
a  knowledge  that  facts  proving  personal  identity  are 
desired. 

We  have  already  seen  how  closely  the  subliminal  self 
seems  able  to  imitate  every  earmark  of  genuine  per¬ 
sonality.  Especially  in  the  cases  of  dual  personality 
was  this  imitation  so  marvelously  complete  and  con¬ 
sistent  as  to  deceive  any  one  unacquainted  with  the 
phenomenon.  The  apparent  power  to  select  appropri¬ 
ately  is  but  an  attribute  of  personality,  and  the  telepa¬ 
thist  sweeps  this  objection  aside  by  saying  that  he  be¬ 
lieves  the  subliminal  self  endowed  with  every  imitative 
ability,  including  the  ability  to  select.  Accused,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  assuming  omniscience  for  the  subliminal 
self,  the  telepathist  denies  that  omniscience  is  even 
necessary.  He  asserts  that  there  was  never  a  fact 
delivered  by  a  medium  but  had  its  origin  either  in 
the  medium’s  mind,  her  sitters’  minds,  or  in  the  mind 
of  some  one  known  to  them  or  to  her. 

But,  concludes  the  spiritualist  triumphantly,  saving 
his  big  gun  till  the  last,  why,  if  the  subliminal  self  is 
the  sole  cause  and  origin  of  all  the  messages,  why  do 
these  messages  reveal  a  continuous,  eager  and  logical 
attempt  to  prove  personal  identity?  Do  you  assert, 
continues  the  spiritualist,  that  the  subliminal  self  (un- 


328 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


consciously  to  the  medium),  not  content  with  creating 
and  continuing  for  years  entirely  fictitious  characters 
that  it  calls  “controls,”  goes  further,  and  cunningly 
endows  these  fictitious  “spirits”  with  every  attribute, 
desire,  whim,  method  of  thought,  point  of  view  and 
reason  for  action  that  a  genuine  spirit  might  have? 
Do  you  assert,  in  fact,  that  this  subliminal  self  is  spon¬ 
taneously  so  clever,  so  all-powerful  in  its  imitative  and 
imaginative  ability  that  it  can,  for  years,  unknown  to 
the  medium  herself,  carry  on  so  gigantic  and  complex 
a  deception?” 

“Yes,  I  do;  and  I  believe  it,”  answers  the  telepathist. 
The  spiritualist  holds  that  “the  alleged  discarnate  spir¬ 
its,  .  .  .  recognize  the  necessity  of  proving  their  iden¬ 
tity,  and  hence  supply  the  sort  of  facts  commonly  util¬ 
ized  by  living  persons  as  proof  of  identity.  Exactly,” 
comments  Mr.  Bruce  in  an  excellent  summary  of  the 
gist  of  the  telepathist’s  argument,  “and  they  would  do 
precisely  the  same  thing  on  the  supposition  that  they 
were  not  discarnate  spirits  at  all,  but,  as  the  telepathist 
believes  the  evidence  goes  to  show,  were  simply  sec¬ 
ondary  personalities  that  had  taken  form  and  charac¬ 
ter  in  Mrs.  Piper’s  organism,  just  as  secondary  per¬ 
sonalities  take  form  and  character  in  the  organism 
of  a  person  who  is  hypnotized.  In  the  last  analysis 
there  is  no  difference  between  the  trance  state  into 
which  Mrs.  Piper  goes  during  a  seance  and  the  trance 
state  of  any  hypnotic  subject.  The  distinction  simply 
is  that  she  seems  to  be  constitutionally  so  nervously 
unstable  that  she  falls  spontaneously  into  the  hypnotic 
condition.  Now,  a  hypnotized  person,  ,  .  .  will  enact 
with  seemingly  preternatural  fidelity  any  role  suggest¬ 
ed  to  him  by  the  hypnotist.  By  so  much  more  should 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


329 


Mrs.  Piper,  with  her  exceptional  autohypnotic  gift, 
be  able  to  respond  to  suggestion,  and  in  her  varying 
secondary  personalities  fill  roles  suggested  to  her,  how¬ 
ever  unconsciously  or  subconsciously,  by  those  who 
have  so  long  been  experimenting  with  her.  Remem¬ 
ber  F.  W.  H.  Myers’  criticism  of  the  hypnotized  pa¬ 
tients  of  the  Salpetriere:  ‘One  feels  that  the  Sal- 
petriere  has,  in  a  sense,  been  smothered  in  its  own 
abundance.  The  richest  collection  of  hysterics  which 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  it  has  also  (one  fears)  be¬ 
come  a  kind  of  unconscious  school  of  these  unconscious 
prophets — a  milieu  where  the  new  arrival  learns  in¬ 
sensibly  from  the  very  atmosphere  of  experiment 
around  her  to  adopt  her  own  reflexes  or  responses  to 
the  subtly  divined  expectations  of  the  operator.’ 

“The  case  seems  to  be  identical  with  respect  to  Mrs. 
Piper.  When  Professor  James  discovered  her,  nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  she  was  simply  one  of 
numerous  mediums  operating  in  and  about  the  city  of 
Boston.  There  were  features  in  her  mediumship,  how¬ 
ever,  which  appeared  to  him  to  merit  investigation,  and 
accordingly  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  thru 
Dr.  Hodgson,  took  her  in  hand.  The  results,  at  first, 
were  comparatively  meager,  and  often  disappointing. 
It  was  noticed  that  her  ‘control,’  the  so-called  ‘Dr. 
Phinuit,’  was  given  to  asking  leading  questions  and 
to  making  glaringly  false  statements.  With  the  arri¬ 
val  of  ‘George  Pelham’  there  was  a  marked  improve¬ 
ment  in  the  mediumship,  and  a  greater  improvement 
from  the  day  the  ‘Imperator’  group  of  ‘controls’  took 
a  hand  in  affairs.  All  this  time  Mrs.  Piper  had  been 
the  subject  of  scientific  investigation,  had  been  in  the 
company  of  zealous  experimenters.  Is  it  not  possible, 


330 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


nay,  is  it  not  probable,  that,  like  the  new  arrivals  at 
the  Salpetriere,  she  ‘learned  insensibly  from  the  very 
atmosphere  of  experiment  around  her  to  adopt  her 
responses  to  the  subtly  divined  expectations  of  the 
operator’  ? 

“In  her  case,  the  operators  felt  that  the  great  thing 
to  be  established  was  proof  of  personal  identity,  and 
that  it  was  therefore  necessary  for  alleged  communi¬ 
cating  discarnate  spirits  to  cite  trivial  incidents  con¬ 
nected  with  their  earthly  career.  In  response,  the 
secondary  personality  which  had  assumed  the  character 
of  George  Pelham,  Professor  Hyslop’s  father,  or  who¬ 
ever  it  might  be,  would  flash  at  the  operators  trivial 
facts  extracted  telepathically  from  the  depths  of  their 
own  minds.  There  would  thus  be  the  very  selective¬ 
ness  which  Professor  Hyslop  maintains  is  incredible 
on  the  telepathic  hypothesis.”1 

In  answer  to  this  last  argument  Myers  advances  the 
excellent  point  that  there  is  at  least  one  not  infrequent 
kind  of  message  that  cannot  be  a  “mere  echo  of  ex¬ 
pectation,”  namely,  anagrams.  Of  these  there  are 
numerous  examples  in  all  mediumistic  records.  Sen¬ 
tences  will  be  written  backward,  or  words  will  be 
given  in  which  every  second  letter  must  be  read  to  get 
the  sense.  Tables  will  rap  out  spontaneously,  and  so 
fast  that  the  letters  can  be  hardly  taken,  long,  complex 
acrostics  and  verbal  puzzles  that  it  may  take  hours  to 
decipher.  Surely  it  cannot  be  said  that  these  messages 
were  expected,  and  came  in  answer  to  the  expectation. 


’Bruce:  Riddle  of  Personality,  pp.  213-6. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


331 


Other  Arguments  for  Spiritualism 

But  there  must  be  other  reasons  in  favor  of  spirit¬ 
ualism  besides  those  that  have  been  given,  else  it  would 
not  have  received  the  adherence  of  those  it  has.  The 
very  fairness  and  moderation  of  your  scientific  spirit¬ 
ualist  is  itself  an  argument  in  his  favor.  Dr.  Hyslop 
himself  calls  spiritism  no  more  than  “the  best  working 
hypothesis  in  the  field  to  explain  the  phenomena  con¬ 
cerned.  Others,”  he  adds,  “may  think  it  absolutely 
proved,  but  I  shall  not  claim  so  much,  nor  place  my¬ 
self  where  further  inquiry  and  knowledge  might  em¬ 
barrass  a  retreat,  though  I  think  that  most  intelligent 
men  will  agree  that  no  other  hypothesis  presents  half 
the  credentials  of  rationality  that  can  be  claimed  for 
spiritistic  agency.”1 

Myers,  the  very  founder  of  modern  spiritistic  phi¬ 
losophy,  admits  the  cogency  of  the  telepathist’s  argu¬ 
ments  ;  admits,  indeed,  that  most  of  the  alleged  spirit 
messages  are  merely  subliminal  in  their  origin.  He 
says  he  does  not  wish  to  be  understood  to  mean  that 
they  all  come  “from  sources  external  to  the  automa¬ 
tisms  own  mind.  In  some  cases  they  probably  do  this ; 
but,  as  a  rule,  the  so-called  messages  seem  more  prob¬ 
ably  to  originate  within  the  automatist’s  own  person¬ 
ality.  “Why,  then,  .  .  .”  he  says,  “do  I  call  them 
messages?  We  do  not  usually  speak  of  a  man  as  send¬ 
ing  a  message  to  himself.  .  .  .  They  present  them¬ 
selves  to  us  as  messages  communicated  from  one 
stratum  to  another  stratum  of  the  same  personality. 
Originating  in  some  deeper  zone  of  a  man’s  being, 


JHyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  267. 


f 


332 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


they  float  up  into  superficial  consciousness,  as  deeds, 
visions,  words,  ready-made  and  full-blown,  without 
any  accompanying  perception  of  the  elaborate  process 
which  has  made  them  what  they  are.”1 

At  the  very  outset  to  his  monumental  work,  in  fact, 
Myers  had  clearly  stated  very  decided  limitations  in 
the  application  of  the  spiritistic  hypothesis.  “This 
work  of  mine,”  he  says,  “is  in  a  large  measure  a  crit¬ 
ical  attack  upon  the  main  spiritist  position,  as  held, 
say,  by  Mr.  A.  R.  Wallace,  its  most  eminent  living 
supporter — the  belief,  namely,  that  all,  or  almost  all, 
supernormal  phenomena  are  due  to  the  action  of  spirits 
of  the  dead.  By  far  the  larger  proportion,  as  I  hold, 
are  due  to  the  action  of  the  still  embodied  spirit  of  the 
agent  or  percipient  himself.  Apart  from  speculative 
differences,”  he  adds,  “I  altogether  dissent  from  the 
conversion  into  a  sectarian  creed  of  what  I  hold  should 
be  a  branch  of  scientific  inquiry,  growing  naturally  out 
of  our  existing  knowledge.  It  is,  I  believe,  largely  to 
this  temper  of  uncritical  acceptance,  degenerating 
often  into  blind  credulity,  that  we  must  refer  the  lack 
of  progress  in  spiritualistic  literature.”2 

Such  are  not  the  words  of  spiritualistic  fanatics, 
but  of  scientists  who  have  carefully  weighed  conflicting 
evidence. 

There  is  one»strong  argument  in  favor  of  spiritual¬ 
ism,  what  Dr.  Hyslop  calls  “the  dramatic  play  of  per¬ 
sonality”  in  the  communications,  which,  unfortunately 
from  our  standpoint,  appeals  much  more  strongly  to 
those  immediately  present  at  the  sitting  than  to  the 


‘Myers :  Human  Personality,  p.  258. 


1 Ibid p.  7. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


333 


reader.  Yet  I  believe  I  can  show  a  sufficient  number 
of  examples  to  give  you  the  idea,  if  not  to  create  the 
impression. 

“The  Dramatic  Play  of  Personality”  in  Mediumistic  Com¬ 
munication 

We  have  already  heard  the  telepathist  claim  that  the 
subliminal  self  can  imitate  every  phase  of  personality. 
But  the  spiritualist  refuses  to  admit  that  this  fictitious 
simulation  can  be  carried  far  enough  to  create  that 
overwhelming  impression  of  the  presence  of  real  per¬ 
sonal  “controls”  that  is  given  by  the  medium  in  the 
trance  state,  an  impression  so  strong  that  no  theory, 
or  explanation,  can  argue  it  away.  And  this  is  more 
than  a  mere  “unity  of  consciousness” ;  that  is,  a  con¬ 
sistent  continuance  of  a  definite  personality  from  sit¬ 
ting  to  sitting,  tho  the  evidence  in  this  respect  seems 
difficult  for  the  telepathist  satisfactorily  to  explain. 
Dr.  Hyslop  says,  for  example,  “If  the  reader  will  re¬ 
cur  to  the  incidents  which  I  have  narrated  as  purport¬ 
ing  to  come  from  my  father,  deceased,  he  will  observe 
that  group  of  them  .  .  .  relating  to  our  conversations 
on  the  subject  of  psychic  research  before  his  death. 
Here  were  a  number  of  incidents  belonging  to  that  con¬ 
versation,  the  reference  to  hallucination,  my  doubts, 
thought  transference,  Swedenborg,  hypnotism,  appa¬ 
ritions,  and  dreams,  with  some  experiments  of  my 
own.  They  are  incidents  which  a  personal  conscious¬ 
ness  might  naturally  be  expected  to  recall  and  tell, 
but  which  we  should  not  expect  any  telepathic  process 
to  do.”1 


‘Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  270. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


334 

Somewhat  later,  Dr.  Hyslop  calls  attention  to  further 
interesting  continuances  of  incidents  from  sitting  to 
sitting.  “The  ‘communicator’  will  fail  at  one  time  to 
get  his  incident  rightly,”  he  says,  “and  come  back  to 
it  at  a  later  time  and  correct  it.  Or  he  may  get  it  right 
at  the  first  attempt  and  return  to  it  later  for  giving 
additional  matter,  or  ascertaining  whether  his  message 
has  been  received  or  not.  Thruout  the  experiments 
there  is  this  natural  psychological  connection  between 
the  incidents,  and  perhaps  as  interesting  a  psychologi¬ 
cal  fact  as  any  is  that  which  indicates  this  connection 
consistently  carried  out  thru  all  the  distinctions  of  per¬ 
sonality  in  different  ‘communicators.’  There  is  no 
confusion  of  these,  except  apparently  when  some  one 
acts  as  an  intermediary  for  another,  and  this  is  very 
often  accompanied  by  the  statement  that  the  incidents 
belong  to  another  than  the  intermediary,  so  that  the 
distinction  of  personalities  is  kept  up.”1 

In  other  words,  one  of  the  main  contentions  of  the 
spiritualist  is  that  the  amazingly  consistent  and  com¬ 
plete  personalities  built  up  by  the  messages  are  too 
consistent  and  complete  to  be  merely  the  work  of  im¬ 
agination. 

But,  alas !  in  reply  the  telepathist  merely  points  to 
cases  like  Professor  Flournoy’s  Mile.  Helene.  Almost 
certainly  telepathic  as  this  is — unless  we  want  to  ad¬ 
mit  the  reality  of  those  Martian  spirits  of  hers — it  is 
a  remarkable  example  of  how  closely  the  subliminal 
self  can  imitate  genuine  spirit  personalities,  and  how 
consistent  and  complete  these  fictitious  personalities 
are.  Is  it  not  possible,  then,  that  Mrs.  Piper’s  “con- 


JHyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  271. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


335 


trols”  are,  after  all,  merely  so  many  fictitious  person¬ 
alities  created  by  her  subliminal  self,  and  writing  and 
speaking  consistently,  even  for  years? 

The  reader  will  remember  that  different  “controls” 
dominate  different  stages  of  the  Piper  case.  These 
“controls”  performed  the  function  of  a  society  for 
psychical  research  for  “the  other  side.”  They  chose 
communicators  and  secured  them ;  arranged  sittings  for 
them,  decided  the  order  of  their  speaking;  in  short, 
supervised  every  detail  of  sending  the  messages. 

“Now,  it  must  be  conceivable,”  remarks  Dr.  Hyslop, 
“that,  if  this  is  true,  we  should  expect  that  any  diffi¬ 
culties  associated  with  the  ‘communications’  would  be 
accompanied  by  various  intrusions  of  conversation  and 
remarks  on  the  ‘other  side’  not  intended  to  be  ‘com¬ 
municated,’  but  which  would  slip  through,  neverthe¬ 
less,  just  as  irrelevancies  often  occur  in  the  telephone 
when  lines  are  crossed  or  conditions  favor  a  confusion 
and  interruption  of  messages.”1 

And  as  it  happens,  we  have  in  the  record  many  ex¬ 
amples  of  this  very  thing.  “Just  at  the  beginning  of 
a  sitting,  Rector,  acting  as  ‘control’  at  the  time,  ap¬ 
parently  said  to  the  ‘communicator,’  who  purported  to 
be  my  father,  ‘Speak  clearly,  sir.  Come  over  here.’ 
The  reply  was  ‘Yes,’  as  if  intending  to  obey  Rector’s 
injunction;  and  then  Dr.  Hodgson  was  accosted  with 
the  question,  ‘Are  you  with  James?’  On  Dr.  Hodg¬ 
son’s  affirmative  reply,  my  father  responded,  with  an 
evident  understanding  that  he  was  to  ‘communicate’ 
with  Dr.  Hodgson  in  my  absence,  and  the  sitting  went 
on.”2 

’Hyslop:  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  274. 

‘Ibid.,  pp.  275-6. 


386 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


There  are  interruptions  by  one  of  the  “controls”  or 
communicators  just  as  spontaneous  and  natural  as  any 
similar  incident  on  earth.  “There  were  a  number  of 
these  interferences  by  George  Pelham.  He  is  generally 
better  at  getting  proper  names  than  Rector,  and  on  oc¬ 
casions  when  these  give  difficulty,  George  Pelham  is 
likely  to  be  called  in  to  assist.  Let  me  take  some  illus¬ 
trations  of  this. 

“There  had  been  some  difficulty  and  confusion  from 
the  start  in  getting  the  name  of  my  cousin,  Robert 
McClellan,  calling  it  ‘Allen,’  ‘McCollum,’  ‘McAllen,’ 
etc.  On  one  occasion,  when  this  cousin  was  trying  to 
‘communicate,’  he  gave  the  name  of  George  Pelham 
in  full,  and  said  that  he,  George  Pelham,  was  assist¬ 
ing  him  to  ‘communicate.’  A  moment  later,  right  in 
the  midst  of  a  ‘communication’  which  was  greatly  con¬ 
fused,  George  Pelham  suddenly  interjects  the  excla¬ 
mation  :  ‘Look  out,  Hodgson,  I  am  here — George  Pel- 
him.  Imperator  sent  me  some  moments  ago.’  Then, 
in  a  few  minutes,  while  Rector  was  struggling  to  get 
the  name  McClellan  clear,  and  could  only  get  ‘McAl¬ 
len,’  George  Pelham  breaks  in  and  says :  ‘Sounds  like 
McCellan,  George  Pelham,’  and  my  cousin  acknowl¬ 
edges  its  correctness  by  saying,  ‘Yes,  I  am  he.’1 

“This  cleavage  of  personalities  and  interference  and 
interruption  of  the  messages  in  the  manner  described 
represents  a  dramatic  action  quite  natural  in  the  situa¬ 
tion,  and  there  is  no  need  of  it  on  the  telepathic  hy¬ 
pothesis.”2 


’Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  277. 

2Ihid.,  pp.  278-9. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


387 

Similarly,  the  mistakes  and  confusion  which  abound 
in  the  record  have  a  genuinely  personal  flavor,  which 
the  hypothesis  of  telepathic  simulation  hardly  accounts 
for.  Dr.  Hvslop,  for  example,  once  asked  for  informa¬ 
tion  regarding  an  old  neighbor  named  Samuel  Coop¬ 
er.  The  information  given  by  the  “communicator” 
(Dr.  Hyslop’s  father)  was  entirely  wrong;  but  was 
afterward  found  to  be  right  concerning  a  Dr.  Joseph 
Cooper.  It  is  natural  enough  that  the  mind  of  a  dead 
man  suffer  from  defective  memory ;  but,  on  a  tel¬ 
epathic  theory,  how  is  such  a  mix-up  explicable?  Dr. 
Hyslop  had  not  thought  of  Dr.  Joseph  Cooper  for 
years ;  his  mind  was  full  of  Samuel  Cooper.  Why 
should  not  telepathy  have  selected  this  Cooper  to  whom 
to  give  its  imaginary  messages? 

Here  is  another  illustration  given  by  Dr.  Hyslop: 
“On  one  occasion  I  had  asked  what  my  uncle  had  died 
with,  and  it  was  two  years  before  I  received  the  cor¬ 
rect  answer.  But  the  immediate  answer  involved  the 
statement  first  that  Robert  had  gotten  his  foot  injured 
on  the  railroad,  and  then  it  was  afterward  ascribed  to 
Frank,  both  Robert  and  Frank  being  names  of  my 
brothers.  With  reference  to  them,  however,  the  state¬ 
ments  were  false.  My  brother  Frank  had  had  an  in¬ 
jured  leg,  but  it  was  not  caused  in  any  connection  with 
a  railway.  My  brother  Robert  never  had  any  such 
injury.  But  my  uncle,  about  whom  I  had  asked  the 
question,  had  had  his  leg  cut  off,  or  nearly  cut  off,  at 
the  ankle,  by  a  railway  car,  and  died  from  the  effects 
of  the  operation  a  few  hours  later.  No  living  memory 
had  the  facts  as  they  were  told,  while  their  correct 


338 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


form  was  not  given.  This  is  not  a  natural  phenome¬ 
non  of  telepathy.  .  .  .1 

“Another  incident2  shows  this  confusion  very  clear¬ 
ly,”  says  Dr.  Hyslop.  “My  father  had  referred  to  an 
illness  which  my  sister  had  had  three  months  before  the 
sitting,  he  having  died  six  years  previously.  But  he 
could  not  continue  what  he  wished  to  say,  and  later  he 
returned  with  the  help  of  my  wife,  who  had  died  two 
years  before ;  calling  her  his  wife — a  statement  correct¬ 
ed  by  her  spontaneously  the  next  day — he  showed  some 
confusion  again  about  my  sister,  and  Rector,  the  ‘con¬ 
trol,’  said  (wrote)  to  me:  ‘He  seems  a  little  dazed  in 
thought.  It  is  most  certainly  connected  with  Lida  in 
the  body.’  Then  my  father  went  on  to  mention  a  dis¬ 
ease  and  physical  difficulties  that  he  claimed  had  been 
his  own,  the  main  one  of  which  I  knew  to  be  false  with 
regard  to  him.  But  inquiry  showed  that  examination 
had  been  made  for  this  one  in  my  sister’s  case,  and  that 
the  other  two  incidents  were  especially  relevant  to  my 
sister,  and  were  relevant  to  my  father’s  condition  just 
before  death.  The  interesting  circumstance,  however, 
is  that  Rector  was  aware  of  the  irrelevance  of  the  facts 
as  he  was  going  to  state  them,  and  forewarned  me  as 
to  their  reference,  while  my  father  went  on  with  a 
confused  sense  of  personal  identity,  claiming  as  his 
own  what  was,  in  fact,  intended  as  true  for  my  sister.” 

Here  is  an  incident3  showing  how  clearly  the  earthly 
consciousness  seems  to  continue  after  death.  The  ex¬ 
ample,  an  excellent  one,  occurs  in  Dr.  Hodgson’s  re¬ 
port  on  the  Piper  case.  “After  the  death  of  George 


’Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  282. 
‘Ibid.,  pp.  323-4.  3lbid.,  pp.  324-5. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


339 


Pelham  a  friend  of  the  deceased,  by  the  name  of  Mr. 
Hart,  had  some  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper,  and  was  very 
much  annoyed  by  the  way  in  which  the  messages  were 
spelled  out  in  confusion,  this  process  extending  often 
to  very  ordinary  words.  Some  time  later  Mr.  Hart 
himself  suddenly  dies,  and  soon  afterward  became  a 
‘communicator,’  but  at  first  a  very  confused  one.  Dr. 
Hodgson  had  known  him  in  life,  and  was  present  at  his 
sittings.  One  day  this  Mr.  Hart  turned  up  at  one  of 
Dr.  Hodgson’s  sittings  and  engaged  in  the  following 
‘communications,’  whose  significance  is  apparent  at  a 
glance : 

“  ‘What  in  the  world  is  the  reason  you  never  call 
for  me?  I  am  not  sleeping.  I  wish  to  help  you  in 
identifying  myself.  ...  I  am  a  good  deal  better  now. 
(You  were  confused  at  first.)  Very;  but  I  did  not 
really  understand  how  confused  I  was.  It  is  more  so, 
I  am  more  so  when  I  try  to  speak  to  you.  I  under¬ 
stand  now  why  George  spelled  his  words  to  me.’  ” 

Here  the  spirit  confesses  his  own  inadequacy  as  a 
communicator,  and  refers  to  a  trivial  criticism  of  the 
same  fault  in  another  communicator,  a  criticism  which 
he  had  made  when  on  earth.  Does  it  seem  likely  that 
telepathy  simulates  all  these  little  details? 

Does  telepathy  simulate,  too,  the  constant  and  fre¬ 
quent  change  of  communicators,  occurring  thousands 
of  times  in  the  record?  Why  should  some  communi¬ 
cators  be  clear,  correct  and  rational,  and  others  be  con¬ 
fused,  lying  and  incoherent?  Would  this  be  true  if 
they  were  all  the  imaginary  creatures  of  the  subliminal 
self?  “This  simulation  of  what  we  should  most  natu¬ 
rally  expect  of  spirits  ought  not  to  characterize  telep¬ 
athy,  There  is  apparently  nothing  in  the  memory  of 


340 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


the  sitters  or  other  living  persons  to  make  the  incidents 
remembered  of  one  person  easily  accessible  and  those 
of  another  impossible.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  my 
record  I  received  practically  nothing  about  my  mother 
except  her  name,  and  even  that  was  given  by  another 
than  herself!  My  uncle,  James  M'cClellan,  was  a  very 
clear  ‘communicator’  in  most  incidents,  and  his  son  was 
almost  a  failure,  tho  I  remembered  far  more  about  the 
son  than  I  did  about  his  father.  Another  uncle  was 
very  confused  for  two  years,  but  much  clearer  after 
that,  while  my  father  became  more  confused  with 
time.”1 

There  is  a  great  difference,  Dr.  Hyslop  notes,  “be¬ 
tween,”  for  example,  “Rector’s  and  George  Pelham’s 
ability  to  get  proper  names,  or  certain  difficult  and  un¬ 
familiar  messages,  while  they  are  otherwise  about  equal 
in  their  abilities.  There  is  no  reason  of  an  ordinary 
kind  that  can  be  adduced  for  their  equality  in  all  but 
proper  names  and  the  like.  George  Pelham  is  better 
than  Rector  in  this  respect,  tho  the  telepathic  hypothe¬ 
sis  has  to  assume  them  merely  secondary  personali¬ 
ties  of  Mrs.  Piper.”2 

Here  you  have  the  problem,  very  briefly  and  inade¬ 
quately  outlined,  awaiting  your  decision.  Telepathy  vs. 
spiritism :  which  explains  these  remarkable  phenomena  ? 
The  evidence  is  still  inconclusive :  diligent  workers  are 
still  toiling  in  the  mine  of  psychic  research ;  if  I  have 
made  you  believe  that  there  is  there,  among  a  great 
deal  of  rubbish,  a  little  very  much  worth  while,  I  shall 
have  achieved  my  purpose. 


'Hyslop :  Science  and  the  Future  Life,  p.  262. 

2Ibid.,  p.  265. 


“I  FEEL,  I  ENOW  WITH  CERTITUDE  THAT  IN  DYING 
I  SHALL  BE  HAPPY” 

We  live  in  dreams  almost  with  the  same  intensity  as  in 
reality.  Pascal  said,  “I  believe  that  if  in  our  dreams  we  could 
see  ourselves  constantly  with  the  same  surroundings,  with,  on 
the  contrary,  those  of  our  every-day  life  as  infinitely  varied  as 
our  dreams,  we  would  consider  the  dream  as  the  reality,  and 
the  reality  as  the  dream.” 

This  is  not  altogether  exact. 

The  reality  is  distinguished  from  the  dream  in  that  it  is 
more  real. 

I  would  express  it  differently:  If  we  had  never  known  a 
life  more  real  than  our  dreams  we  would  consider  the  dream 
as  the  reality,  and  we  would  never  doubt  that  it  was  our  real 
life. 

All  of  our  life,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  is  it  not,  with 
all  of  its  dreams,  in  reality  a  dream  which  we  mistake  for  the 
reality?  Are  we  not  certain  of  its  reality  solely  because  we 
do  not  know  of  another  life  which  is  more  real? 

Not  only  do  I  believe  this,  but  I  am  convinced  that  this  is 
the  only  reason  of  our  certitude. 

Even  as  during  our  terrestrial  life  we  live  through  a  thou¬ 
sand  dreams,  this  is  only  one  of  thousands  of  lives  from  which 
we  have  come,  and  to  which  we  will  return,  to  another  life, 
more  real,  more  authentic,  and  to  which  we  will  return  after 
our  death. 

Our  terrestrial  life  is  one  of  the  dreams  of  another  life,  more 
real,  and  so  on,  to  the  infinite,  to  the  life  eternal  which  is 
the  life  of  God. 

Birth,  and  the  dawning  of  the  first  notions  of  the  world, 
may  be  considered  the  commencement  of  sleep:  all  of  our  ter¬ 
restrial  life  as  a  profound  sleep:  death  as  the  awakening. 

Premature  death  is  the  death  of  one  who  is  awakened  before 
having  finished  all  his  sleep. 

341 


342 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


Death  from  old  age  is  the  death  of  one  who  has  finished 
his  sleep  and  awakens  of  his  own  accord. 

Suicide  is  a  nightmare  which  one  forces  to  disappear  when 
one  realizes  that  one  has  been  asleep. 

A  man  who  is  entirely  absorbed  by  the  present  life,  who  feels 
no  presentiment  of  another  life,  is  one  who  sleeps  profoundly. 

Profound  sleep,  without  dreams,  is  comparable  to  a  state  of 
seini-bestiality. 

The  sleeper  who  feels  during  his  sleep  what  takes  place 
around  him,  who  sleeps  lightly,  and  who  is  ready  to  awaken  at 
any  instant,  is  he  who  has  a  consciousness,  even  though  vague, 
of  the  life  from  which  he  has  come,  and  to  which  he  is  about 
to  return. 

During  sleep  mankind  is  always  selfish,  lives  for  himself, 
without  partaking  in  the  lives  of  his  kind,  bound  to  them  by 
no  ties. 

In  the  life  which  we  consider  as  the  real  life,  our  ties  to  our 
kind  are  already  greater:  there  exists  the  appearance  of  love 
of  our  brother. 

In  the  life  from  which  we  have  come,  and  to  which  we 
will  return,  this  tie  is  closer:  love  of  our  fellow  man  is  no 
longer  a  simple  aspiration,  but  a  reality.  The  lives  of  which 
we  have  spoken  are  only  a  preparation  for  the  life  eternal, 
where  the  ties  which  bind  us  all  are  still  closer  and  brotherly 
love  greater  still. 

All  that  we  dream  and  resolve  in  this  life  will  perhaps  be 
realized  in  the  life  to  come. 

The  corporeal  body  in  which  we  live  here  below  forms  an 
impediment  to  the  beautiful  things  which  our  spirit  conceives, 
and  hinders  their  execution.  Matter  is  the  enemy  of  the  spirit. 
The  real  life  begins  when  that  impediment  is  abolished. 

Within  this  idea  is  encompassed  all  that  we  know  of  the 
truth,  and  it  gives  to  man  the  consciousness  of  eternal  life. 

I  am  not  amusing  myself  in  imagining  a  theory.  I  believe 
with  all  my  soul  in  what  I  have  just  said.  I  feel,  I  KNOW 
with  certitude  that  in  dying  I  shall  be  happy,  and  that  I  will 
enter  into  a  life  more  real. 


— Count  Tolstoi. 


CHAPTER  XV 
CONCLUSION 


The  truths  which  the  spiritualist  claims — with  much 
reason — that  he  has  both  revealed  and  substantiated, 
are  immeasurably  the  most  important  with  which  sci¬ 
ence  has  had  to  do. 

Scientific  research  has  fostered  the  growth  of  a  most 
cold-blooded  materialism ;  which,  however  little  it  has 
been  itself  accepted,  has  seriously  undermined  the  au¬ 
thority  of  the  church  and  the  influence  of  religion.  The 
Christian  of  the  second  century  and  the  monk  of  the 
eighth  viewed  this  life  as  but  a  transitory  period  of 
trial  and  preparation  for  “another  world.”  To  them, 
as  to  all  Christians  for  hundreds  of  years,  the  Bible 
was  more  than  an  inspired  code  of  morals ;  it  was  a 
literal  record  of  actual  events.  We  now  little  realize 
how  the  Mediterranean  world  welcomed  that  early 
teaching;  to  them  it  was  literally  the  “Go(d)-spel,” 
the  “Good  News.”  Why  “good  news”?  Because  it 
had  set  their  doubts  at  rest.  There  was  a  future  life 
for  all :  they  were  sure  of  it ;  for  “one  had  died  and  rose 
from  the  dead.” 

But  doubts  are  stubborn  things.  After  nineteen 
hundred  years  we  find  the  same  old  query  and  hesitation 
and  unsatisfied  longing  rising  again.  The  Reforma¬ 
tion  struck  the  first  blow;  the  polite  and  mocking 
atheism  of  the  seventeenth  century  struck  another ;  but 
modern  science — the  doctrine  of  evolution,  the  methods 

343 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


3M 

of  critical  research — must  be  credited  with  the  last  and 
severest,  a  blow,  indeed,  that  was  staggering.  We 
were  told  that  geology  proved  that  this  earth  of  ours 
was  several  million  years  in  the  making  instead  of  a  few 
days.  We  were  told  that  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  so  far  from  being  the  work  of  a  man  by  that 
name,  was  probably  a  patchwork,  mostly  by  two  men 
who  lived  some  hundred  years  apart.  We  were  told, 
lastly,  by  some  very  eminent  persons,  that  the  miracles 
of  the  Apostles  and  of  the  Christ  himself  were  contrary 
to  the  laws  of  nature,  and  therefore  were  obviously 
myths. 

At  just  about  this  time  science  was  doing  very  won¬ 
derful  things — cleaving  mountains,  spanning  conti¬ 
nents  with  a  tremor  of  intelligent  electricity,  propelling 
leviathans  on  the  seas  and  projectile-like  carriers  on  the 
land,  fabricating  wonderfully  complex  machines  for 
doing  better  and  faster  everything  human  hands  could 
do — in  short,  science  was  a  great  body  of  active,  pow¬ 
erful  infallibility ;  its  decrees  were  listened  to  with  awe, 
and  accepted  almost  unquestioningly,  regardless  of  be¬ 
lief  or  former  bias. 

Biology,  psychology,  history,  found  no  place  for 
miracles ;  and  the  Christian  world  suddenly  found  the 
foundation  of  its  dogma  tottering  under  ruthless  attack. 
Almost  unconsciously,  men  began  to  think  perhaps 
One  didn’t  “arise  from  the  dead,”  after  all ;  that  per¬ 
haps  that  story  was  more  or  less  of  a  myth.  Anyway, 
it  happened  so  long  ago  its  appeal  was  growing  rather 
hazy.  And  to-day,  as  a  result,  the  average  man  is  no 
longer  sure  of  the  future  life :  he  hopes,  he  believes, 
or  he  does  not  care  or  does  not  think;  he  certainly 
does  not  know. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


345 


But  as  far  back  as  the  7o’s  the  pendulum  had  be¬ 
gun  to  swing  the  other  way ;  now,  whatever  we  may 
think  of  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  certain  psychical  phe¬ 
nomena,  it  is,  among  educated  people,  gaining  momen¬ 
tum  daily. 


Spiritualism  and  the  Bible 

Rereading  the  Biblical  story  in  the  light  of  the  re¬ 
searches  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  how 
brightly  illumined  are  many  places  formerly  dark ! 
Looking  at  it  from  the  spiritualistic  standpoint,  the  in¬ 
spired  Book  sounds  like  a  veritable  record  of  medium- 
ship. 

Both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  are  patchwork 
narratives,  whose  focal  points  and  climaxes  are  in¬ 
stances  of  ecstasy  or  vision,  some  of  them  clairvoy¬ 
ant,  some  of  them  in  dreams.  Moses,  Joseph,  all  the 
prophets,  Mary,  Elizabeth,  Stephen  at  his  martyrdom, 
Saul  on  the  way  to  Damascus,  John — the  list  is  a  long 
one.  In  many  cases  these  visions  were  precognitions, 
or  prophecies. 

We  have  telepathy  exerted  often  in  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment,  by  the  Apostles,  and  scores  of  times  by  the  Mas¬ 
ter  himself.  The  Bible  does  not  call  it  “telepathy,”  of 
course ;  but  that  is  what  is  described  :  “Knowing  their 
hearts”  the  record  puts  it,  or  “perceiving  what  she  was 
thinking.” 

We  have  possession  by  external  spirits — “possessed 
with  devils”  is  the  usual  phrase — as  with  the  swine  in 
“the  country  beyond  the  Jordan,”  and  the  demoniacal 
girl.  The  latter’s  symptoms,  as  recorded,  are  almost  ex¬ 
actly  those  of  the  trance  state  in  motor  automatism ; 
and  there  are  other  descriptions  of  mediumistic  trance 


346  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

and  of  mediums,  tho  the  Bible  usually  calls  the  latter 
“witches.” 

In  connection  with  Moses’  miracles  occurred  numer¬ 
ous  physical  phenomena  in  a  class  with  table-tipping 
and  the  Zollner  phenomena.  And  we  have  in  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  at  least  three  descriptions  of 
levitation. 

We  have  cases  of  apparitions,  quite  often  in  the  Old 
Testament,  more  rarely  in  the  New.  The  latter  com¬ 
pensates,  however,  by  giving  us  the  most  striking  and 
most  thoroly  substantiated  case  of  materialization  that 
we  have,  namely,  that  of  the  resurrected  Christ  him¬ 
self,  who  ate  and  “suffered  them  to  touch  him,”  yet 
who  passed  thru  the  solid  walls  of  the  upper  chamber 
at  Jerusalem. 

In  fact,  you  will  be  amazed  by  the  correspondence  in 
the  phenomena  recorded,  case  after  case,  detail  after 
detail,  in  the  Bible,  substantiated  and  corroborated  by 
the  researches  of  modern  spiritualism.  Even  the  fraud¬ 
ulent  phenomena  were  existent  then,  as  now ;  for  we 
are  told  there  were  “false  prophets”  who  did  “divers 
wonders.” 

Modern  science  herself  coming  to  the  rescue  of  the 
Scriptural  narrative — this  is  indeed  an  anomaly!  Yet 
the  church  could  gain  no  better  ally ;  and  spiritualism, 
if  it  be  true,  and  I,  least  of  all,  have  any  desire  to  say 
dogmatically  that  it  either  is  or  is  not — will  be  the 
means  of  restoring  to  Christianity,  a  hundredfold 
stronger,  the  place  it  has  slowly  lost  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  many  men.  We  know,  say  the  spiritualists, 
that  “One  has  risen  from  the  dead” ;  we  know  that 
there  is  a  future  life,  for  we  have  proved  it.  Give 
Christianity  the  basis  of  immortality  again,  founded 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE?  347 

this  time  on  reason  as  well  as  faith,  and  to  what  will 
it  not  attain  ? 

The  Difficulty  of  Knowing  of  the  “Other  World” 

Before  closing,  I  wish  to  touch  with  the  utmost  brev¬ 
ity  upon  one  or  two  important  general  points. 

We  must  never  forget  how  little,  after  all,  we  know 
about  what  troubles  those  “on  the  other  side”  may  have 
in  their  attempt  to  communicate.  Remember,  we  do 
not  know  that  these  “spirits”  have  our  senses  or  our 
memories  as  we  have  them,  any  more  than  we  have  the 
senses  and  memories  of  some  possible  previous  exist¬ 
ence. 

And  if  they  do  have  them,  they  may  be  simply  relics 
of  the  earth  world,  unused  and  almost  unusable.  We 
can  imagine  what  a  shock  the  change  we  call  death  is 
upon  the  continuity  of  their  personality ;  we  may  im¬ 
agine  how  hard  it  is  for  the  deceased  spirit  to  grow 
accustomed  to  his  new  environment.  Perhaps  in  the 
new  life  the  earth-senses  atrophy  with  disuse,  and  the 
earth-memories  fade  very  fast  into  irrevocable  forget¬ 
fulness.  It  may  be  that  the  ability  to  communicate  re¬ 
quires  a  strong  effort  of  will  and  great  exertion,  or 
even  pain,  to  the  spirit.  Knowing  none  of  these  things, 
do  not  let  us  blame  the  spirits  if  we  think  they  fail 
to  do  even  “their  share.” 

Or,  as  Dr.  Hyslop  says,  their  earth-memories  may 
be  to  them  much  as  our  dreams  are  to  us,  a  confused, 
phantasmagoric  stream  of  sensations  and  incidents,  in 
which  it  is  wofully  hard  for  the  spirit  to  focus  upon 
the  points  desired  in  communication. 

And  besides  all  these  difficulties  there  are  so  few  of 
those  loopholes  that  we  call  mediums,  thru  which  they 


348 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


can  catch  glimpses  of  our  earth-world!  We  know 
nothing  about  this  desire,  confusion  and  difficulty  on 
the  other  side,  perhaps  as  great  as  are  ours  on  this. 
“Even  in  such  fashion,”  says  Frederic  Myers,  “thru 
Mrs.  Piper’s  trances,  the  thronging  multitude  of  the 
departed  press  to  the  glimpse  of  light.  Eager,  but 
untrained,  they  interject  their  uncomprehended  cries; 
vainly  they  call  the  names  that  no  man  answered ;  like 
birds  that  have  beaten  against  a  lighthouse,  they  .  .  . 
fly  in  disappointment  away.”1 

Dr.  Hodgson  sums  up  most  admirably  the  difficulties 
which  may  bar  the  way  to  a  spirit’s  mediumistic  com¬ 
munications.  “If,  indeed,  each  one  of  us  is  a  ‘spirit’ 
that  survives  the  death  of  the  fleshly  organism,  there 
are  certain  suppositions  that  I  think  we  may  not  un¬ 
reasonably  make  concerning  the  ability  of  the  discar- 
nate  ‘spirit’  to  communicate  with  those  yet  incarnate. 
Even  under  the  best  of  conditions  for  communication 
— which  I  am  supposing  for  the  nonce  to  be  possible 
—it  may  well  be  that  the  aptitude  for  communicating 
clearly  may  be  as  rare  as  the  gifts  that  make  a  great 
artist,  or  a  great  mathematician,  or  a  great  philosopher. 
Again,  it  may  well  be  that,  owing  to  the  change  con¬ 
nected  with  death  itself,  the  ‘spirit’  may  at  first  be  much 
confused,  and  such  confusion  may  last  for  a  long  time ; 
and  even  after  the  ‘spirit’  has  become  accustomed  to 
its  new  environment,  it  is  not  an  unreasonable  suppo¬ 
sition  that  if  it  came  into  some  such  relation  to  another 
living  human  organism  as  it  once  maintained  with  its 
own  former  organism,  it  would  find  itself  confused  by 
that  relation.  The  state  might  be  like  that  of  awaking 


1 National  Review ,  1898,  p.  240. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


349 


from  a  prolonged  period  of  unconsciousness  into 
strange  surroundings.  If  my  own  ordinary  body  could 
be  preserved  in  its  present  state,  and  I  could  absent 
myself  from  it  for  days  or  months  or  years,  and  con¬ 
tinue  my  existence  under  another  set  of  conditions  alto¬ 
gether,  and  if  I  could  then  return  to  my  own  body,  it 
might  well  be  that  I  should  be  very  confused  and  in¬ 
coherent  at  first  in  my  manifestations  by  means  of  it. 
How  much  more  would  this  be  the  case  were  I  to  re¬ 
turn  to  another  human  body.” 

One  of  the  very  commonest  condemnations  of  psy¬ 
chical  phenomena  heard  is  that  they  have  given  us, 
so  far,  very  little  information  about  the  “other  world.” 
Perhaps  the  spirits,  even  if  they  would,  are  absolutely 
unable  to  give  intelligible  information ;  and  I  believe 
this  quotation  from  Dr.  Savage  will  make  clear  at  least 
one  reason  why:  “All  our  knowledge  here  is  limited, 
of  necessity,  by  our  past  experience,  the  experience 
of  the  race.  If  I  were  to  attempt  to  describe  to  you 
any  new  thing  or  any  new  place,  I  could  do  it  only  by 
comparing  it  with  something  with  which  you  are  al¬ 
ready  familiar ;  and  just  in  so  far  as  it  was  unlike  any¬ 
thing  with  which  you  were  familiar,  just  in  so  far  it 
would  be  simply  impossible  for  me  to  describe  it  to 
you  so  that  you  could  have  any  intelligible  idea  of  it. 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  I  should  come  back  from 
a  journey  in  Central  Africa,  and  should  sit  down  with 
a  friend  and  say,  ‘I  found  a  very  strange  and  curious 
thing  there,’  and  he  should  say,  ‘Well,  what  shape  was 
it?’  I  would  say,  ‘It  was  not  the  shape  of  anything 
you  ever  saw.  It  was  a  new  shape.’  ‘What  color  was 
it?’  ‘It  was  a  new  color.’  ‘What  was  it  like?’  ‘It 
was  not  like  anything  you  ever  saw.’  Do  you  not  see 


350 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


that  it  would  be  absolutely  impossible  for  me  to  explain 
it  to  him,  tho  I  might  know  about  it,  and  might  be  ab¬ 
solutely  certain  of  the  fact?”1 

Our  universe  is  a  universe  of  the  senses :  we  see, 
hear,  feel,  smell,  taste  things ;  and  so  know  that  the 
universe  exists.  We  know  nothing  of  what  the  “other 
world”  is  like.  There  they  may  neither  see,  hear,  feel, 
taste  nor  smell :  how,  then,  can  they  describe  to  us  their 
world  ?  Helen  Kellar,  born  blind,  deaf  and  dumb,  lives 
in  a  universe  of  touch.  She  cannot  realize  our  world. 
We  may  tell  her  about  it ;  yet  she,  without  three  of  our 
five  senses,  can  form  only  an  incomplete  idea  of  it. 
Supposing  she  had  none  of  our  senses :  this  may  be 
similarly  our  condition  in  relation  to  that  other  world. 
How  can  they  tell  us  concerning  it  ?  And,  did  they  tell 
us,  how  much  wiser  would  we  be?  Yet,  after  all,  we 
are  not  entirely  without  information  regarding  the  oth¬ 
er  world :  we  may  know  but  one  or  two  facts,  but  they 
are  important  ones. 

The  Evidence  of  Future  Happiness 

One  of  the  first  things  noticed  by  the  psychic  re¬ 
searchers  was  the  uniformly  high  moral  character  of 
the  communications  received.  This  has  not,  as  Mr. 
Myers  says,  been  sufficiently  noticed  or  adequately  ex¬ 
plained.  “Haunting  phantoms,  incoherent  and  unintel¬ 
ligent,  may  seem  restless  and  unhappy.  But  as  they 
rise  into  definiteness,  intelligence,  individuality,  the 
phantoms  rise  also  into  love  and  joy.  I  cannot  recall 
one  single  case  of  a  proved  posthumous  combination  of 


'Savage:  The  Life  After  Death,  p.  274. 


ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 


851 


intelligence  and  wickedness.  Such  evil  as  our  evidence 
will  show  us  ...  is  scarcely  more  than  monkeyish 
mischief,  childish  folly.  .  .  .  But  ...  all  that  world- 
old  conception  of  evil  spirits,  of  malevolent  powers, 
which  has  been  the  basis  of  so  much  of  actual  devil- 
worship  and  of  so  much  more  vague  supernatural  fear 
— all  this  insensibly  melts  from  the  mind  as  we  study 
the  evidence  before  us.”1 

Regarding  the  final  solution  of  the  psychic  problem, 
most  of  us  are,  as  yet,  not  at  all  sure;  some  of  us  deem 
incredible  the  conclusions  reached  by  the  believers  in 
spiritualism ;  yet  we  are  not  sure  of  our  unbelief !  Some 
of  us,  on  the  other  hand,  believe  the  proof  of  a  future 
life  scientifically  established ;  but  we  realize  that  our 
basis  is  none  too  surely  set. 

After  all,  what  do  we  expect  to  settle  in  twenty-five 
years’  research  ?  The  supreme  problem  that  has  trou¬ 
bled  mankind  for  countless  centuries?  We  must  be¬ 
ware  of  unwarranted  generalizations  and  deductions 
too  hastily  made  from  insufficiently  observed  facts.  It 
seems  incongruous  here  to  say  that  nothing  else 
had  delayed  the  progress  of  psychical  research  so 
much  as  the  lack  of  funds.  But  so  it  is.  Yet 
funds  will  eventually  be  forthcoming,  and  the 
work  will  go  on,  not  impatiently,  not  with  blind 
incredulity,  but  steadily  and  surely.  “Remember,”  says 
one  who  should  know  best,  “that  this  inquiry  must  be 
extended  over  many  generations ;  nor  must  he  allow 
himself  to  be  persuaded  that  there  are  short  cuts  to 
mastery.  ...  We  have  no  confidence  here  more  than 
elsewhere  in  any  methods  except  the  open,  candid, 


'Myers:  Human  Personality,  p.  252. 


352  ARE  THE  DEAD  ALIVE? 

straightforward  methods  which  the  spirit  of  modern 
science  demands.”1  And  a  little  further  on  he  adds: 

“Beyond  us  still  is  mystery ;  but  it  is  mystery  lit  and 
mellowed  with  an  infinite  hope.  We  ride  in  darkness 
at  the  haven’s  mouth ;  but  sometimes  thru  rifted  clouds 
we  see  the  desires  and  creeds  of  many  generations  float¬ 
ing  and  melting  upward  into  a  distant  glow.”2 


'Myers:  Human  Personality,  p.  252. 

'Myers :  The  Drift  of  Psychical  Research.  National  Review, 
v.  24,  p.  190. 


THE  END 


INDEX 


A 

A.,  Miss,  medium,  276-8 
Abruzzi,  Duke  of  the,  Eusapia’s 
patron,  74 

Accordion  playing,  26 
Adare,  Lord,  levitations  with  Home, 
66-7 

Agents,  in  telepathic  experiments, 
236-7 

Aggazotti,  Alberta,  at  second  Turin 
seances,  95 

Ahrensburg  cemetery  disturbances, 
210 

Aksakof,  M.,  at  Milan  sittings,  78; 

striking  levitation  test  of,  84; 
Alexis,  clairvoyant  medium,  24 
Amusing  fraud,  an,  179-80 
Anagrams,  in  messages,  330 
Anesthesia,  induced  telepathically, 
247-8 

Animals,  see  apparitions?  207-11 
Anthropomorphization  of  ghosts, 
202 

Apparitions,  remarkable,  117-18; 
proofs  of  immateriality  of,  195-6; 
evidenced  in  proof  of  future  life, 
289-90;  in  the  Bible,  346 
Apparitions  of  the  dead,  see  Ghosts 
Apparitions  of  the  living,  181-7; 
proved  by  Census,  181 ;  statement 
of  Dr.  Savage,  182;  probable,  183; 
premonitory,  183-4;  self-projection, 
184-7;  case  of  Mr.  Kirk,  184-5;  case 
of  the  Misses  Verity,  185-6;  man's 
astral  body  travels  many  miles, 
186 

Appetites,  hypnotic  control  of,  166 
Apports,  of  flowers,  11;  of  flowers 
and  fruit,  29;  definition  of,  86; 
reality  of  (Wallace),  221 


Apulian  dialect,  Eusapia  speaks,  73 
"Arena,”  remarkable  case  of  pre¬ 
monition  in,  254-5 

Arlington,  Mass.,  home  of  Mrs.  Pi¬ 
per,  291 

Arullani,  Dr.,  at  second  Turin 
seances,  96 

Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  Crookes’  Address  before, 
9 

Astral  body,  possibility  of,  126 
Astral  body,  projection  of  the,  see 
Self-projection 

Astral  hands  leave  prints,  78;  break 
a  mold,  1 18;  seen,  106-10 
Astral  hands,  see  also  Materializa¬ 
tion 

Astral  members,  education  of,  115-16 
Auburn,  Fox  sisters  visit,  42 
Audenino,  Dr.,  at  first  Turin  sit¬ 
tings,  91 

Auto-hypnotization,  see  Self-hypno- 
tization 

Automatic  writing,  observed  by 
Dialectical  Society,  29;  W.  T. 
Stead  on,  172;  of  Moses  MSS., 
283-4;  Mrs.  Piper’s,  293;  spiritistic 
hypothesis  for,  323-4 
Automatism,  phenomena  of,  266-71 ; 
various  phases  of,  268-72;  defini¬ 
tion  of,  269 

Automatism,  see  also  "Watseka 
Wonder,”  Possession,  Motor 
Automatism 

Aylesbury,  Commander  T.,  case  of, 
161-2 

B 

B.,  Mme.,  case  of,  134-5 
Balfour,  Arthur  James,  president  of 
S.  P.  R„  5 


355 


356 


INDEX 


Barbaroux,  Jacques,  at  first  Turin 
seances,  91 

Barber,  Mrs.  Caroline,  case  o  £ 
telepathy,  233 

Barrett,  Prof.  W.  F.,  founder  of 
S.  P.  R.,  5;  rappings  observed  by, 
45;  table  tipping  noted,  48;  is 

there  a  future  life?  288;  impos¬ 
sible  ever  to  prove,  288-9;  eminent 
scientific  men  believe  it  proved, 
289;  psychic  phenomena  not 
trivial,  289;  evidence  of  appari¬ 
tions,  289-90 

Barzini,  at  Genoa  sittings,  86 

Beauchamp,  Miss,  case  of,  135-6 
Bebee,  Harriet,  becomes  medium, 
+2 

Bellachini,  endorses  Slade,  25 
Berisso,  at  Genoa  sittings,  86 

Bianchi,  M.,  at  first  Naples  sittings, 

/6 

Bible,  spiritualism  and  the,  345-6; 
ecstasy  in  the,  345;  precognitions 
in  the,  345;  telepathy  in  the,  345; 
possession  in  the,  345-6;  mediums 
in  the,  346;  physical  phenomena 
in  the,  346;  levitation  in  the,  346; 
apparitions  in  the,  346;  materiali¬ 
zation  in  the,  346;  fraudulent  phe¬ 
nomena  in  the,  346 
Birchall,  Mr.,  agent  in  telepathic 
experiments,  237 

Blavatsky,  Mme.,  detected  in  fraud, 
14 

Bocca,  M.,  at  first  Turin  seances,  91 
Bodies,  movement  of,  11 
Bodily  organism,  powers  of  the, 
163-4 

Borrelli,  Count  Guy,  at  first  Turin 
seances,  91 

Bottazzi,  Filippo,  convinced  of  fu¬ 
ture  existence,  99;  wishes  proofs, 
101 ;  works  with  scientific  thoro- 
ness,  102;  describes  materializa¬ 
tions,  107,  108,  109;  photographs 
materialized  hand,  109;  and  Eusa- 
pia’s  synchronism,  113-15 
Bouquet,  levitation  of  a,  too 


Bourne,  Ansel,  remarkable  case  of, 

136- 9;  leaves  his  home  in  Greene, 
R.  I.,  136;  as  A.  J.  Brown  in 
Norristown,  Pa,  136;  awakening, 
137;  hypnotized,  tells  his  story, 

137- 9 

Bozzano,  at  Genoa  sittings,  86 
Breaking  to  pieces  of  a  table,  97 
Breathing,  changes  in,  in  trance, 
150 

Breeze,  cold,  from  medium,  92 
Brewer’s  Dictionary  of  Miracles, 
Home’s  exploits  in,  64 
British  Association  for  the  Ad¬ 
vancement  of  Science,  Crooke’s 
address  before,  9 

British  Society  for  Psychical  Re¬ 
search,  see  Society  for  Psychical 
Research 

Brougham,  Lord,  ghost  seen  by, 
188-9 

Brown,  A.  J.,  see  Bourne,  Ansel 
Bruce,  H.  Addington,  summarizes 
difficulties  with  old  definition  of 
self,  129-30;  Mrs.  Pipers  phenom¬ 
ena  telepathic,  328-9 
Bulgings  of  cabinet  curtain,  typical 
example,  87-8 

Bundy,  Col.  J.  C.,  investigates 
“Watseka  Wonder”  case,  140 

c 

Cabinet  curtain,  bulgings  of,  typi¬ 
cal  example,  87-8 

Cahagnet’s  subject,  case  of  automa¬ 
tism,  271 

‘‘Canning,  Willie,”  a  control  of 
Raney  Vennum,  144 
Cardarelli,  Antonio,  at  Naples 
seances,  104 

Card-plates,  levitation  of,  26 
Cards,  telepathy  with,  244-5 
Carrington,  Hereward,  wholesale 
fraud  in  slate-writing,  32-3;  diffi¬ 
culty  of  detecting  it,  37;  criticism 
of  Zdllner  phenomena,  39;  table¬ 
tipping  certainly  genuine,  48;  con¬ 
clusions  regarding  table-tipping, 


INDEX 


357 


S3;  endorses  Home,  63;  note  on 
Home’s  “elongation,”  68-9;  fraud 
in  spirit  photography  common, 
177-8;  shows  methods  of,  178-80; 
tells  an  amusing  fraud,  179-80; 
methods  of  “mind-reading,”  228- 
31;  fraud  improbable  in  Piper 
case,  294 
Catalepsis,  166. 

Census  of  Hallucinations,  173-6; 
proves  apparitions  of  the  living, 
181-2 

Chain,  breaks  in  mediumistic,  105 
Chair,  levitation  of,  n 
Challis,  Professor,  quoted,  2t 
Change  in  communicators,  argu¬ 
ment  from,  339-40 
Chiaia,  Prof.,  Eusapia  and,  75 
Christian,  early,  view  of  future  life, 
343 

Christian  Science,  place  of,  167 
Christ’s  passion,  stigmata  of,  166 
Clairaudience,  definition,  7;  phe¬ 
nomena  of,  161-3;  case  of  Com¬ 
mander  Aylesbury,  161-2;  case  of 
the  Jeannette,  162;  case  of  Major- 
Gen.  R.,  162-3 

Clairvoyance,  definition,  7;  typical 
cases  of,  152-6;  case  of  Prof.  Greg¬ 
ory,  152-3;  message  with  planchet, 
154;  spirit  tells  of  distant  events, 
I5S;  violation  of  a  grave,  155-6: 
finding  of  Helge  Dehli,  156-7; 
case  of  Bertha  Huse,  158-61;  other 
examples  of,  r6i;  what  is  clair¬ 
voyance?  163-7 

Clay,  impressions  in,  see  Impres¬ 
sions  in  clay 

Clothes,  of  ghosts,  204;  material¬ 
ized,  214;  melt  away,  214;  restore 
themselves,  215 

Coals,  hot,  handled  with  impunity, 
69-70 

Cold  breeze  from  medium,  92 
Cold  of  seance  room  registers  on 
thermometer,  13 

Communication  with  the  dead  pos¬ 
sible,  171 ;  example  of,  172;  diffi¬ 
culties  in,  348-9 


Communications,  spirit,  how  made, 
261-2;  by  direct  writing,  262-3;  not 
easy,  265-6;  supernormal  knowl¬ 
edge  in  mediumistic,  279-82 
Communications,  see  Messages 
Communicators,  change  in,  argu¬ 
ment  from,  339-40 

Confusion,  in  messages,  argument 
from,  337-8 

Consciousness,  threshold  of,  131 ; 
subliminal,  130-2 

Continuation  of  incidents  from  sit¬ 
ting  to  sitting,  333-5;  similar  cases 
in  telepathy,  334-5 
Control,  phenomena  of,  139 
Controls,  remarkable  change  in, 
304-5;  307-9;  interference  between, 
335-6 

Controls,  see  also  “Phinuit”  con¬ 
trol,  “Pelham”  control,  “Imper- 
ator”  control,  etc. 

Conway,  percipient  in  telepathy,  242 
Cook,  Miss,  materializing  medium, 
217-20 

Cord,  knots  tied  in,  90 
Corriere  della  Sera,  sittings  under 
auspices  of,  85 

Cox,  Edw.,  Report  of  Dialectical 
Society,  31-2 

Crawford,  Earl  of,  see  Lindsay, 
Master  of 

Creasy,  Jack,  a  “spirit,”  276-8 
Credulity,  danger  of,  20 
Crookes,  Sir  William,  converted  to 
spiritualism,  4;  phenomena  ob¬ 
served  by,  9-14;  states  his  posi¬ 
tion,  10;  gets  a  lath  message, 
13-14;  defends  his  position,  19-20; 
statement  of,  22;  rappings  ob¬ 
served  by,  43-5;  table-tipping  cer¬ 
tain,  48-9;  Home’s  levitations 
with,  64-6;  Home’s  heat  phenom¬ 
ena  with,  69-70;  table  of  vibra¬ 
tions,  126;  message  with  planchet, 
154;  scientific  courage  of,  199; 
materialized  clothes  with,  214-15; 
materializations  with  Home,  215- 
17;  Katie  King  materialization, 


388 


INDEX 


217-20;  message  by  direct  writing, 
262-3 

Crystal  gazing,  observed  by  Dia¬ 
lectical  Society,  29 
Curtain  of  cabinet,  bulgings  of, 
typical  example,  87-8 

D 

Damiani,  Sig.,  teaches  Eusapia 
spiritualism,  75 

Dark  room,  why  necessary,  59 
Davey,  S.  J.,  duplicates  slate-writing 
tricks,  16 

Dead,  the,  do  not  seem  to  be  source 
of  psychic  force,  58;  soul  may 
exist  after  death  without  commu¬ 
nication,  38;  communication  with 
the,  possible,  171;  example  of,  172; 
have  never  died  (Wallace),  221 
De  Amicis,  investigates  Eusapia, 
100;  at  Naples  seances,  104 
Death,  apparitions  immediately  after, 
173-6;  apparition  at  moment  of, 
191 ;  apparitions  before,  1;  telepa¬ 
thy  more  possible  at  moment  of, 
227;  a,  described  by  automatic 
writing,  302-3;  an  awakening 
(Tolstoi),  342 

Death,  see  also  Future  life 
DeGasparin,  table-tipping  researches 
of,  50-1;  table  tested  with  flour, 
31;  stubbornness  of  tables,  51 
Dehli,  Helge,  finding  of,  156-7 
Delayed  percipience,  321;  definition 
of,  322-3 

Delusion,  does  not  explain  Dialecti¬ 
cal  Society  phenomena,  30 
"Demons,  possessed  by,”  see  Pos¬ 
session 

Dentist  saves  his  life  by  premoni¬ 
tion,  252-3 

De  Rochas,  theory  of  fluidic  double, 
113 

Dessoir,  German  spiritualist,  5 
Dialectical  Society,  see  London  Dia¬ 
lectical  Society 

Direct  writing,  message  by,  2623 
Disappearance  of  table,  miraculous, 
40 


Discarnate  spirits,  not  necessary  to 
psychic  phenomena,  116-19 
Discarnate  spirits,  possession  by, 
see  Possession 

Distance,  events  at  a,  told,  135;  ac¬ 
tions  observed  at  a,  306-7 
Diver,  aided  by  clairvoyance,  160-1 
"Doctor,”  control,  283 
Dogs,  see  apparitions?  207-11 
Double,  astral,  see  Self-projection 
Double  exposure,  “spirit”  photog¬ 
raphy,  179 

Double  impression,  telepathic  send¬ 
ing  of,  240-2 

Double  slates,  slate-writing  with, 
34 

"Dramatic  play  of  personality,”  ar¬ 
gument  from,  332-40;  continuance 
of  incidents  from  sitting  to  sit¬ 
ting,  333-5;  interference  between 
controls,  333-6 

•Drawings,  by  "spirits,”  29;  clair¬ 
voyant,  156-7;  telepathy  of,  239-42 
Dream,  life  is  a  (Tolstoi),  341 
Drums,  rappings  imitating,  43 
Dual  personality,  not  uncommon, 
134;  case  of  Mary  Reynolds,  134; 
case  of  Mme.  B.,  134-5;  case  of 
Felida  X.,  135;  Miss  Beauchamp 
case,  135-6;  remarkable  case  of 
Ansel  Bourne,  136-9;  distinguished 
from  possession,  139 
Dummy  book,  fraudulent  slate¬ 
writing  with,  35 

Du  Prel,  Chas.,  at  Milan  sittings,  78 
Dynamometer,  registers  levitation, 
13;  fraud  in  register,  94 
Dynamo,  winds  itself  up,  107 

E 

Earles,  Ansel  Bourne  rents  shop  of 
the,  137 

Ecstasy,  evidence  for,  225;  in  the 
Bible,  345 

Education,  of  astral  members, 
115-16 

Eglinton,  slate-writing  medium,  16 
Elliotson,  Dr.,  convert  to  spiritual¬ 
ism,  17 


INDEX 


359 


Elongation,  observed  by  Dialectical 
Society,  29;  Home’s,  67-9 
Enfield,  N.  H.,  home  of  Bertha 
Huse,  158 

Ermacora,  Dr.,  at  Milan  sittings,  78 
Erotic  ecstasy,  trance  state,  149 
Espie,  Mr.,  suicide  of,  168 
Etheric  hands,  see  Astral  hands 
Evidence,  laws  of,  222-3 
Externalization  of  sensibility,  with 
Eusapia,  113 

Eye-glasses,  levitation  of,  too 
Eyes,  Eusapia’s,  103 

F 

Faces,  materialization  of,  217 
Faraday,  measures  “psychic  force,’’ 
52 

Fechner,  observed  Zollner  phenom¬ 
ena,  38;  partially  blind,  39 
Felida  X.,  case  of,  135 
Fingers,  luminosity  around,  m; 

anestheticized  telepathically,  247-S 
Finzi,  M.,  Milan  sittings  with,  78 
Fire  phenomena,  see  Heat  phe¬ 
nomena 

Fish,  Mrs.,  one  of  Fox  sisters,  42 
Flags,  telepathic  drawings  of,  239- 
4 2 

Flames,  see  Luminous  appear¬ 
ances 

Flammarion,  Camille,  attacks  skep¬ 
ticism,  20;  rappings  noted  by,  45; 
table-tipping  no  longer  doubtful, 
48;  has  no  doubt  of  soul  sur¬ 
vival,  55;  his  study  of  psychic 
forces,  55-6;  role  of  psychic  force 
little  understood,  57;  cause  of 
rappings  unknown,  58;  psychic 
force  is  not  from  dead,  58;  soul 
may  exist  after  death  without 
communicating,  58;  table-tipping 
true  but  unexplained,  59;  why 
darkness  in  seance-room  is  nec¬ 
essary,  59;  what  S.  P.  R.  has 
accomplished,  60;  final  conclu¬ 
sions  of,  60;  at  first  Naples  sit¬ 
tings,  75-7;  description  of  trance 
state,  150- 1 


Flaps,  trick  slate-writing  with,  35 
Flottum,  John,  clairvoyant  medi¬ 
um,  156-7 

Flour,  table-tipping  tests  with,  51 
Flowers,  apports  of,  11,  29;  levi¬ 
tation  of,  107;  levitation  of  a  pot 
of,  121 ;  spirit,  around  sitter,  303 
Flournoy,  Prof.,  269 
Fluidic  double,  theory  of,  1x3 
Foa,  Carlo,  at  second  Turin  seances, 
95 

Foa,  Pio,  investigates  psychic  phe¬ 
nomena,  99 

Fogazzaro,  Milan  sittings  with,  85 
Forces,  all  composed  of  vibrations, 
123-S 

Fourth  dimension,  Zollner  biased 
by  theory  of,  38-9 
Fox,  Kate,  confesses  fraud  in  rap¬ 
pings,  43;  retracts  confession,  43; 
observed  by  Crookes,  43-4 
Fox  sisters,  confess  fraud,  14; 
discovery  of  their  power,  40-1 ; 
investigated  by  townspeople,  41- 
2;  spread  of  their  rappings,  42-3; 
materialization  with  the,  213-14 
Fraud,  an  inadequate  explanation, 
3;  in  all  professional  phenomena, 
14-19;  does  not  explain  Dialecti¬ 
cal  Society  phenomena,  29;  whole¬ 
sale,  in  slate-writing,  32-3;  difficul¬ 
ty  of  detecting,  37;  probability  of 
in  Zollner  phenomena,  38-40;  Kate 
Fox’s  confession  of,  43;  retraction 
of  confession,  43;  doubtful  in 
table-tipping,  48;  lack  of  with 
Home,  63,  70-1;  Eusapia’s  discov¬ 
ered  by  S.  P.  R.,  82;  Eusapia  de¬ 
tected  in  at  Genoa,  88-9;  cunning 
of  Eusapia’s,  89;  in  a  dynamom¬ 
eter  register,  94;  precautions 
against,  Naples,  104-5;  precautions 
against  with  Eusapia,  121;  com¬ 
mon  in  spirit  photography,  177-8; 
methods  of,  177-9;  an  amusing,  179- 
80;  in  materialization,  212-13;  does 
not  explain  all  (Wallace),  222;  in 
telepathy,  227-32;  muscle-reading, 
231-2;  can  be  excluded,  259;  al- 


360 


INDEX 


leged,  not  apparent  in  Piper  case, 
293-4;  impossible  in  (Hyslop), 
294;  efforts  to  obviate,  in,  299- 
301 

Fraudulent  phenomena  in  the  Bible, 
346 

Fruit,  apports  of,  29 

Fullerton,  Geo.  S.,  explanation  of 
Zollner  phenomena,  39 

Funk,  Dr.  Isaac,  comments  on 
Crookes’  table  of  vibrations,  126; 
quotes  case  of  clairaudience,  162; 
fraud  in  spirit  photography  com¬ 
mon,  177;  quotes  case  of  self¬ 
projection,  186;  Miss  M.’s  medi- 
umship,  274-6 

Future  life,  probability  of,  6;  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  convinced  of,  72; 
proved  by  S.  P.  R.,  147;  W.  T. 
Stead  believes  in,  171;  improbable 
(Richet),  198;  proofs  of  survival 
weak,  198;  ghosts  not  sufficient 
proof  of,  211;  happiness  of  the, 
221 ;  psychic  research  the  only 
thing  proving  the,  223;  impossible 
to  assert  regarding  (Lang),  250; 
we  deal  only  with  prejudices  con¬ 
cerning  (Lang),  250-1;  is  there  a? 
288;  impossible  ever  to  prove  a, 
288-9;  eminent  scientific  men  be¬ 
lieve  in  a,  289;  information  re¬ 
garding,  no  proof,  316;  happiness 
of  assured  (Tolstoi),  342;  surety 
of,  to  early  Christians,  343;  made 
to  seem  doubtful  by  science,  344- 
5;  difficulty  of  knowing  about  the, 
347;  “spirits”  may  not  have  our 
memories  or  senses,  347;  evidence 
of  happiness  in,  350-2 

Future  life,  see  also  Dead,  the 

G 

Galeotti,  investigates  Eusapia,  100; 
at  Naples,  101;  describes  a  start¬ 
ling  materialization,  no 

Garling,  Mr.,  knocking  heard  by, 
208 

Garrison,  Mr.,  case  of  premonition, 

252 


Genoa,  sittings  at,  86-91 
Gerosa,  M.,  at  Milan  sittings,  78 
Ghosts,  existence  of,  proved,  5;  ap¬ 
parently  proved  by  Census  of 
Hallucinations,  173-6;  photography 
of,  177-81;  of  the  living,  181-7; 
one  seen  by  Lord  Brougham,  188- 
9;  case  of  the  officer  in  the  Trans¬ 
vaal,  189-91;  other  cases,  191;  the 
Morton  “haunting,”  191-7;  what 
are  ghosts,  201-5;  what  ghosts  are 
not,  201-3;  true  definition,  203; 
veridical  after-images,  204;  clothes 
of,  204;  not  all  are  subjective, 

205- 11;  proofs  of  reality  of,  206-7; 
do  animals  see?  207-11;  in  the 
Bible,  346 

Ghosts,  see  also  Materializations; 
Apparitions;  Census  of  Halluci¬ 
nations;  Dead,  the 
Gilbert,  Dr.,  case  of  telepathic  hyp¬ 
nosis,  246-7 

Gigli,  Prof.,  at  first  Naples  sittings, 
76 

“Godfrey”  case,  self-projection  rath¬ 
er  than  multiple  telepathy,  322 
Goodrich-Freer,  Miss,  successful 
Piper  seance  with,  303 
Grave,  violation  of  a,  related  clair- 
voyantly,  155-6 

Greene,  R.  I.,  home  of  Ansel 
Bourne,  136 

Gregory,  Prof.,  case  of  clairvoyance 
with,  152-3 

Grocyn,  in  automatic  script,  284 
Gurney,  quotes  case  of  self-projec¬ 
tion,  185-6;  theory  of  veridical 
after-images,  204;  proofs  of  ghosts, 

206- 7;  telepathic  sending  of  tastes, 
242-3 

Guthrie,  Malcolm,  telepathic  ex¬ 
periments,  234-7 

H 

Hair,  levitation  of  a  lock  of,  100 
Hallucinations,  see  Ghosts,  Appa¬ 
ritions,  Census  of  Hallucinations, 
Materializations 


INDEX 


Hammersmith,  haunting  of  house 
at,  208  9 

Hands,  materialized,  n;  materiali¬ 
zation  of,  at  first  Naples  sittings, 
77;  astral,  leave  prints,  78;  mate¬ 
rialization  of  a  woman's,  92;  start¬ 
ling  materialization  of  arm  and, 
106;  materialization  of  big,  black, 
107;  materialized,  feeling  of,  106-7; 
astral,  break  mold,  118;  materiali¬ 
zation  of  a  hand  in  a  globe  of 
light,  213;  materialization  of  a 
baby’s,  216;  character  of  a  ma¬ 
terialized,  216-17 

Handkerchief  unburned  by  coal,  70 

Happiness,  of  future  life,  221 ;  of  fu¬ 
ture  life  assured  (Tolstoi),  342; 
of  future  life,  evidence  of,  350-2 

Hart,  Mr.,  message  from  a,  338-9 

Haunting  of  house  at  Hammer¬ 
smith,  208-9 

Haunting,  see  also  Ghosts 

Head,  materialization  of  a  sinister, 
92;  materialized,  changes  in  size, 
94;  materialization  of  a,  100;  shape 
of  Eusapia’s,  103 

Healing,  psychic,  observed  by  Dia¬ 
lectical  Society,  29;  hypnotism  in, 
166-7 

Heat  phenomena  observed  by  Dia¬ 
lectical  Society,  29;  Home’s,  69- 
70 

Heavy  bodies,  telekinesis  of,  48-9 

Herlitzka,  Amadeo,  at  second  Turin 
seances,  95 

Hindu  fakir,  rappings  made  by,  46 

Hodgson,  Dr.  Richard,  detects 
Mme.  Blavatsky,  14;  criticizes 
Eusapia  tests,  82;  discovers  her  in 
fraud,  82;  investigates  Ansel 
Bourne  case,  137;  investigates 
“Watseka  Wonder”  case,  140; 
haunting  case  in  Penn.,  210;  opin¬ 
ion  of,  on  Piper  case,  292;  early  in¬ 
vestigation  of  Mrs.  Piper,  296-7; 
investigates  her  again,  303-4;  ante¬ 
cedents  of,  304;  note  on  “George 
Pelham,”  304-5;  displaces  “Impera- 
tor”  controls,  311;  convincing 


361 

message  noted  by,  338-9;  difficul¬ 
ties  in  communication,  348-9 
“Hogan,  Katrina,”  a  control  of 
Raney  Vennum,  144 
Home,  D.  D.,  lath  message  with, 
13-14;  mediumship  of,  61-71;  born 
in  Conn.,  61;  a  convert  to  spirit¬ 
ism,  62;  fascinating  personality, 
62;  seances  with  Crookes,  62; 
death,  62;  lack  of  fraud  with,  63; 
levitations  with,  63-7;  elongation 
with,  67-9;  heat  phenomena,  69- 
70:  physical  strain  of  trance  on, 
151-2;  materializations  with,  215-17 
Horses  see  apparitions?  210 
Hot  coals  handled  with  impunity, 
69-70 

Houdin,  Robert,  endorses  Alexis, 
24 

Hudson,  Dr.  Thomson  Jay,  oppo¬ 
nent  of  extreme  spiritualism,  3; 
case  of  alleged  multiple  telepathy, 
321-2;  experience  as  a  percipient, 
235-6 

Human  beings,  levitation  of,  with 
Crookes,  11 

Huse,  Bertha,  case  of,  157-61 
Husks,  are  ghosts  merely?  203-4 
Hydesville,  Fox  sisters  born  at,  40 
Hyperesthesia,  in  trance,  150;  theory 
of,  in  premonitions,  256-7 
Hypnosis,  telepathic,  245-8;  case  of 
Mme.  B.,  246-7;  anesthesia  in¬ 
duced  telepathically,  247-8;  tele¬ 
pathic  power  increased  under,  249 
Hypnotism  and  the  subliminal  self, 
164-5 

Hypnotism,  see  also  Self-hypnotiza- 
tion 

Hyslop,  James,  criticism  of  Zoll- 
ner’s  rope-tying,  39;  endorses 
truth  of  telepathy,  224-5;  defines 
automatism,  269;  rules  for  medi- 
umistic  experiments,  272;  test  sen¬ 
tence  from  father  of,  279-80;  opin¬ 
ion  of,  on  Piper  case,  293;  fraud 
impossible  in  Piper  case,  294; 
comment  on  “Phinuit”  control, 
298;  investigates  Mrs.  Piper,  309: 


3  62 


INDEX 


spiritualism  not  yet  proved,  331; 
instances  of  continuance  of  per¬ 
sonality  from  sitting  to  sitting, 
333-4;  examples  of  mistakes  in 
messages,  337-8 

I 

Iceberg  figure  of  subliminal  self, 
133 

Identity,  problem  of,  196-7 ;  prob¬ 
lem  of,  316-17;  an  example  prov¬ 
ing,  317;  the  difficulty  of  proving, 
311-18;  surest  proof  of,  in  trivial 
things,  318;  exaVnples  of,  319-20; 
strong  proof  of,  in,  325-6;  why 
messages  seek  to  prove,  327-9 
Immateriality  of  an  apparition, 
proofs  of,  195-6 

Imoda,  Dr.,  at  first  Turin  sittings, 
91;  at  second  Turin  seances,  96 
“Imperator,”  control,  285;  displaces 
“Pelham”  in  Piper  case,  307-9;  is 
displaced  by  Dr.  Hodgson,  311 
Imposture,  see  Fraud 
impressions,  in  clay,  Eusapia  makes, 
78-9;  in  paraffine,  118 
Intelligence,  rappings  governed  by, 
46-7;  behind  automatic  message, 
154 

Interference  between  controls,  335-6 
Involuntary  muscular  action,  see 
Unconscious  muscular  action 

J 

Jacolliot,  rappings  observed  by,  46 
James,  Professor  William,  a  con¬ 
vert  to  spiritualism,  4;  investi¬ 
gates  Huse  case,  160;  opinion  of, 
on  Piper  case,  292;  early  investi¬ 
gation  of  Mrs.  Piper,  295-6;  com¬ 
ment  of  “Phinuit”  control,  298; 
psychic  science  has  been  con¬ 
temptuously  disregarded,  312;  ex¬ 
istence  of  the  subliminal  seif 
proved,  312-13;  instances  of  sub¬ 
liminal  warning,  313-14;  intoler¬ 
ance  of  science  inexcusable,  314 
Janet,  French  spiritualist,  5;  case  of 
telepathic  hypnosis,  246-7 


Jannacone,  Prof.,  at  first  Turin 
seances,  91 

Jastrow,  Prof.,  experiments  with 
psychic  force,  52-3 
Jeannette,  case  of  the,  162 
Joncieres,  Victorin,  musical  rap¬ 
pings,  45 

Jona,  Emmanuele,  at  Naples  se¬ 
ances,  104 

Julia,  Letters  from,  318-19 

K 

Kellar,  shows  slate-writing  tricks, 
23;  and  Eglinton,  24 
Kennedy,  Dr.  Harris,  investigates 
Huse  case,  160 

“King,  John,”  Eusapia’s  “control,” 
impressions  resemble,  79 
“King,  Katie,”  materialized  clothes 
of,  215;  famous  case  of,  217-20; 
proofs  of  materialization  of,  218-20 
Kirk,  Mr.,  self-projection  of,  184-5 
Knots,  tied  in  handkerchief,  26; 
untie  themselves,  87;  tied  in  cord, 
90-1 

Knot-tying,  with  Zollner,  38;  Hys- 
lop’s  criticism  of  Zollner’s,  39 
Knowledge,  supernormal,  see  Super¬ 
normal  knowledge 
Kobbe,  Major,  keeps  appointment 
thru  premonition,  253 

L 

L.,  Lord,  apparition  of,  191 
Lake  Shore  &  Mich.  Southern  R.R., 
remarkable  case  of  premonition 
on,  254-5 

Lang,  impossible  to  assert  regard¬ 
ing  future  life,  250;  we  deal  only 
with  prejudices,  250-1;  science 
should  investigate  psychic  phe¬ 
nomena,  251;  endorses  Mrs.  Piper, 
294 

Languages,  medium  unable  to 
write  in  unknown,  326 
Lath,  message  with  a,  13-14;  tries 
to  write  message,  262-3 


INDEX 


363 


Lebanon,  N.  H.,  home  of  Mrs. 
Titus,  158 

Levitation,  of  a  chair,  it;  of  a 
table,  11 ;  of  human  beings,  11; 
registered  on  dynamometer,  13;  of 
a  card-plate,  26;  observed  by  Dia¬ 
lectical  Society,  28;  with  Zollner, 
38;  complete,  of  tables,  50;  with 
Home,  63-7;  at  first  Naples  sit¬ 
tings,  76-7;  of  tables  photographed 
at  Milan,  78;  test  of  Aksakof,  84; 
at  Genoa  sittings,  86-7;  remark¬ 
able,  90;  and  breaking  to  pieces 
of  a  table,  97;  of  various  bodies, 
100;  weight  of  medium  increases 
during,  122;  reality  of  (Wallace), 
222 

Life,  is  a  dream  (Tolstoi),  341; 
saved  by  premonition,  252-3;  254-5 

Light,  sensitiveness  to,  150;  possi¬ 
bly  fatal,  150;  materialization  of 
a  hand  in  a  globe  of,  213 

Lights,  see  Luminous  appearances 

Limoncelli,  Prof.,  at  first  Naples 
sittings,  76 

Lindsay,  Master  of,  levitations  with 
Home,  66-7;  elongation  with 
Home,  67-9 

Livermore,  Mary  A.,  case  of 
premonition,  252 

Livermore,  Mr.,  materializations  at 
house  of,  214 

Living,  apparitions  of  the,  see  Ap¬ 
paritions  of  the  living 

Lodge,  Mrs.,  remarkable  message 
for,  302-3 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  believer  in  "oc¬ 
cult”  phenomena,  4;  convinced  of 
future  life,  72;  tests  Eusapia,  82; 
endorses  truth  of  telepathy,  224; 
description  of  .telepathic  experi¬ 
ments  of,  234-7;  telepathic  expeii- 
ments  recorded  by,  237-41 ;  inves¬ 
tigates  Piper  case,  299-301;  mes¬ 
sage  regarding  cousins  of,  325 

Lombardi,  investigates  Eusapia,  100; 
at  Naples  seances,  104 

Lombroso,  at  first  Naples  sittings, 
76;  growing  conversion  to  spirit¬ 


ualism,  77;  at  Milan  sittings,  78; 
at  Milan  sittings,  85;  at  first  Turin 
sittings,  91;  scientific  thoroness 
of,  103;  radio-active  theory,  111; 
endorses  psychic  phenomena,  120- 
22;  incident  of  a  Venice  seance, 
121 

London  Dialectical  Society,  spirit¬ 
ualistic  investigation  of,  27-32 
Lubbock,  Sir  John,  president  of 
Dialectical  Society,  27 
Luminous  appearances,  11;  with 
Eusapia,  110-11;  around  Eusapia’s 
“scar,”  in;  around  her  fingers, 
in;  materialization  of,  215-16 

M 

M.,  Miss,  medium,  274-6 
Macalister,  Prof.,  denounces  Mrs. 
Piper,  301 

McAlpine,  Mrs.,  case  of,  167-8 
Magicians,  see  Prestidigitators 
Magnet,  fraudulent  slate-writing 
with,  35-7 

Mandolin,  plays  itself,  93;  is  played 
by  a  materialized  hand,  93-4; 
plays  itself,  107;  synchronism  in 
playing  a,  113-15 

Manuscripts  of  Wm.  S.  Moses,  283-4 
Maris,  M.,  at  first  Turin  seances, 
9 1 

Mars,  spirits  from,  269 
Marvin,  Dr.,  phenomena  of  table¬ 
tipping  genuine,  48 
Maskelyn,  J.  N.,  condemns  pro¬ 
fessional  mediumship,  15 
"Masking”  common  fraud  in  spirit 
photography,  178 

Materialization,  of  a  hand,  1 1 ; 
progress  of  a,  12;  flimsy  trickery 
of,  23;  observed  by  Dialectical 
Society,  28;  at  first  Naples  sit¬ 
tings,  77;  at  Genoa  sittings,  87-8; 
of  shadowy  appearances,  91;  of  a 
sinister  head,  92;  of  a  woman’s 
hand,  92;  struggle  with  a,  92-3; 
of  a  head  which  changes  size,  94; 
of  “Peppino,”  100;  startling,  at 


3 64< 


INDEX 


Naples,  106-10;  detailed  descrip¬ 
tion  of  a,  108-9;  of  hands,  photo¬ 
graphed,  109;  breaks  photographic 
plate,  118;  photography  of,  177-81; 
of  a  picture,  179-80;  discussion  of, 
212-20;  fraudulent,  212-13;  cases  of, 
with  Eusapia,  213;  of  a  hand  in 
globe  of  light,  213;  with  the  Fox 
sisters,  213-14;  of  clothes,  214-15; 
with  D.  D.  Home,  215-17;  ot 
luminous  appearances,  215-16;  of 
a  baby’s  hand,  216;  character  of 
the  materializations,  216-17;  Katie 
King  case,  217-20;  in  the  Bible, 
346 

Mathematical  proof  of  telepathy, 
243-S 

Maxwell,  Dr.  V.,  telekinesis  noted 
by,  26;  rappings  noted  by,  45; 
soul  is  reincarnated,  258;  phenom¬ 
ena  of  psychical  research  very 
old,  258;  beginning  has  now  been 
made,  258;  present  wave  of  spirit¬ 
ualism,  259;  good  mediums  few,  - 
259;  fraud  is  excluded,  259;  “what 
the  force  is  I  do  not  know,”  260 

Mediumistic  chain  broken,  105 

Mediumistic  communications,  super¬ 
normal  knowledge  in,  279-82;  im¬ 
provement  in,  308 

Mediumistic  experiments,  rules  for, 
272 

Mediumistic  phenomena,  typical, 
274-8;  case  of  Miss  B.,  274-5;  case 
of  Dr.  Z.,  278-9 

Mediums,  professional,  not  used  by 
Dialectical  Society,  30;  first  so- 
called,  42;  rappings  differ  with 
each,  44-5;  what  mediums  are, 
148;  our  duty  regarding,  148;  not 
sole  factor  in  psychic  phenomena. 
118-19;  weight  of,  increases  during 
levitation,  122;  mediumship,  148; 
clairvoyant,  156-7;  158-61;  good 

ones  few,  259;  supernormal  knowl¬ 
edge  displayed  by,  295-6;  unable 
to  write  in  unknown  languages, 
326;  in  the  Bible,  346;  rarity  of, 
348 


Mediumship,  trance  state  in,  149- 
51;  phenomena  of,  261-87;  reason 
for,  262;  trial  at  message  without, 
262-3;  prerequisites  of,  264;  difficul¬ 
ty  of,  265-6;  message-bearing,  266- 
8;  rules  for,  272-3;  Miss  M.’s,  274- 
6;  Miss  A.’s,  276-8;  of  Wm.  S. 
Moses,  282-7 

Memory,  tenacious,  of  “Phinuit” 
control,  298-9;  of  “spirits,”  not 
ours,  347 

Messages,  source  of,  8;  with  lath, 
13-14;  received  by  Dialectical  So¬ 
ciety,  28;  rappings  give,  46-7; 
from  the  other  world,  148;  with 
planchet,  154;  spirit,  how  made, 
261-2;  by  direct  writing,  262-3;  not 
easily  sent,  265-6;  message-bear¬ 
ing  phenomena,  267-8;  spirit,  tests 
for,  315-16;  from  subliminal  self, 
322-3;  anagrams  in,  330;  come 
from  subliminal  self,  331-2;  mis¬ 
takes  and  confusion  in,  argument 
from,  337-8;  convincing,  338-9 

Metronome  starts  itself  ticking,  87 

Meurice,  telekinesis  with,  26 

Milan,  first  Eusapia  sittings  at,  78; 
second  sittings  at,  85-6 

Mind-reading,  see  Telepathy 

Minerno-Murge,  birthplace  of  Eu¬ 
sapia,  73 

Minutillo,  Nicola,  at  Naples  se¬ 
ances,  104 

Miracles,  Brewer’s  Dictionary  of, 
Home’s  exploits  in,  64 

Miraculous  disappearance  of  table, 
40 

Mistakes  in  messages,  argument 
from,  337-8 

Mitchell,  S.  Wier,  ghost  reported 
by,  191 

Mooltan,  case  of  clairaudience  at 
siege  of,  162-3 

Morbid  phenomena  of  trance  un¬ 
necessary,  151 

Morgan,  Prof.,  table-tipping  inci¬ 
dent  of,  25;  on  Dialectical  Society 
Committee,  27 

Morse  code,  message  in,  13-14 


INDEX 


365 


Morselli,  makes  impression  in  clay, 
79;  believes  Eusapia  genuine,  80; 
at  Genoa  sittings,  86 
Morton  haunting,  191-7;  story  of  the 
case,  191-5;  proofs  of  immateri¬ 
ality  of  apparition,  195-6;  identity 
of  apparition,  196-7 
Moses,  William  Stainton,  materia¬ 
lized  hand  with,  213;  mediumship 
of,  282-7;  his  MSS.,  283-4;  auto¬ 
matic  messages  of,  285-6;  genuine¬ 
ness  of,  286-7;  a  proof  of  identity 
given  by,  317 
Mosso,  Prof.,  95 

Motor  automatism,  phenomena  of, 
139 

Motor  automatism,  see  also  Posses¬ 
sion;  “Watseka  Wonder”;  Autom¬ 
atism 

Movement  of  heavy  bodies,  11 
Mucchi  at  first  Turin  seances,  91; 
struggles  with  a  materialization, 

92-3 

Mucilage  pencils,  slate-writing  with, 
34 

Multiple  telepathy,  321-2 
Murdered  man  discovered  by  raps, 
41 

Murdered  woman,  ghost  of  a,  204 
Muscle-reading,  231-2 
Muscles,  hypnotic  control  of  the, 
166 

Music  hastens  trance  condition,  151 
Musical  instruments  play  them¬ 
selves,  28 

Musical  rappings,  45 
Myers,  Frederic  W.  H.,  founder  of 
S.  P.  R.,  s;  criticizes  ultra-con¬ 
servatism,  19;  tests  Eusapia,  82; 
defines  limits  of  spectrum,  124; 
compares  our  senses  to  the  spec¬ 
trum,  125-6;  standing  of,  127;  his 
Human  Personality  a  master 
work,  128;  theory  of  subliminal 
self,  128-31;  facts  proved  by  S. 
P.  R.,  147;  (a)  survival  of  soul, 
147;  (b)  existence  of  subliminal 
self,  147-8;  (c)  reality  of  telepathy, 
etc.,  148;  what  a  medium  is,  148; 


our  duty  regarding  mediumship, 
148;  future  methods  of  work,  148; 
Census  of  Hallucinations,  173; 
additional  proof  of  ghosts,  176; 
quotes  case  of  self-projection,  185- 
6;  definition  of  ghosts,  201-3;  evi- 
dence  for  “ecstasy,”  225;  telepa¬ 
thy  a  first  step,  225-6;  telepathy  of 
tastes,  242-3;  defines  motor  au¬ 
tomatism,  269-70;  mediumship  of 
Wm.  S.  Moses,  282-7;  bis  MSS., 
283-4;  opinion  of,  on  Piper  case, 
292-3;  note  on  Salpetriere  patients, 
329;  spiritualism  not  a  religious 
creed,  330;  difficulty  of  communi¬ 
cating,  348;  happiness  of  future 
life,  350-1;  future  of  psychical  re¬ 
search,  351-2 

Myers,  Frederic  W.  H.,  see  also 
Subliminal  self 

N 

N-rays  emitted  by  medium,  164 

Naples,  Eusapia  born  in,  73;  first 
sittings  at,  75-7;  second  seances 
at,  101-18 

Norlenghi,  Dr.,  at  first  Turin  se¬ 
ances,  91 

Norristown,  Pa.,  Ansel  Bourne  at, 

136-9 

Norton,  Chas.  Eliot,  opinion  of,  on 
Piper  case,  292 

Numbers,  telepathy  with,  243-5 

o 

Objects,  telepathy  of  thoughts  of, 
237-8 

Obscenity  repudiated  by  a  spirit. 
121-2 

Obsession,  see  “Watseka  Wonder,” 
Automatism 

Occult  Science  in  India,  quoted,  46 

Ochorowicz  tests  Eusapia  with 
Richet,  81;  tests  Eusapia  for  S. 
P.  R.,  82 

Oesel,  Island  of,  disturbances  on, 
210 


366 


INDEX 


Omniscience,  necessity  of  power  of, 
in  telepathic  hypothesis,  327 
Organism,  powers  of  the,  163-4 
Osier,  Dr.,  and  the  astral  life,  125 

P 

Paintings  by  “spirits,”  29 
Paladino,  Eusapia,  table-tipping 
common  with,  51;  birth,  73;  hole 
in  head,  73;  first  exhibits  powers, 
73;  appearance,  74;  incident  at  St. 
Petersburg,  74;  lack  of  education, 
74;  taught  by  Damiani,  75;  at¬ 
tracts  attention  of  Prof.  Chiaia, 
75;  first  Naples  seances,  75-6; 
goes  to  Milan,  77-8;  success  of 
Milan  seances,  78;  makes  impres¬ 
sions  in  clay,  79;  tested  by  Richet, 
81;  tested  by  Richet  and  Ochoro- 
wicz,  81 ;  downfall  of,  in  England, 
82-4;  doubts  of  her  fraud,  84; 
second  Milan  sittings,  85-6;  Genoa 
sittings,  86-91;  cunning  of  her 
trickery,  89;  remarkable  table  levi¬ 
tation  with,  90;  first  Turin  sittings, 
91-5;  struggle  with  a  materializa¬ 
tion,  92-3;  materialized  head  with, 
94;  tampers  with  dynamometer, 

94- 5;  second  Turin  seances  with, 

95- 8;  investigated  by  men  of  sci¬ 
ence,  100;  scientific  description  of, 
103;  is  securely  sealed  to  floor, 
no;  startling  materializations  with, 
io3-io;  externalization  of  sensi¬ 
bility  with,  1 13;  remarkable  syn¬ 
chronism  with,  113-15;  education 
of  astral  members,  115-16;  does 
she  prove  future  life?  116-19;  en¬ 
dorsed  byLombroso,  120;  radio-ac¬ 
tivity  of,  164;  materialization  with, 

213 

Pallor  in  trance,  150 
Pansini,  Dr.,  at  Naples  seances, 
104 

Pelham  control,  appearance  of,  in 
Piper  case,  304-5;  improvement 
shown  in,  305-6;  tests  given  by, 
306-7;  displaced  by  “Imperator” 


controls,  307-9;  good  on  names, 
336 

Pencil  tries  to  write  message,  262-3 
Pendulum  set  in  motion,  26 
“Peppino,”  a  materialization,  100 
Percipience,  delayed,  321 ;  definition 
of,  322-3 

Percipient  in  telepathic  experi¬ 
ments,  234-5;  can  any  one  be  a? 
235-6 

Perring,  Dr.,  violation  of  a  grave 
told  by  a,  155-6 

Personality,  imitation  of,  in  mes¬ 
sages?  339-40 

(Personality,  see  also  “Dramatic  play 
of  personality” 

Perspiration  in  trance,  150 
Phantasms,  see  Ghosts,  Apparitions, 
Materializations 

“Phinuit,”  control,  297;  improbably 
genuine,  297-8;  Dr.  Hyslop’s  com¬ 
ment  on,  298;  Prof.  James  on, 
298-9;  tenacious  memory  of,  298-9 
Photographic  plate  broken  by  a  ma¬ 
terialization,  1 18 

Photographs,  “spirit,”  172;  177-81; 
probably  fraudulent,  177-8;  meth¬ 
ods  of  producing,  178-9;  possibly 
genuine,  180-1 

Physical  ordeal  of  trance,  151 
Physical  phenomena  of  spiritualism, 
8 

Physiological  changes  in  trance 
state,  150 

Piano  plays  itself,  107 
Picture  “materializes,”  179-80 
Pierce,  Dr.  W.  J.,  spirit  photogra¬ 
phy,  180-1 

Piper,  Mrs.  Leonora,  improvement 
of  trance  state  with,  151 ;  case  of 
automatism,  271;  early  seances  of, 
281-2;  importance  of  case  of,  291; 
genuineness  of,  291-2;  testimony  of 
Dr.  Hodgson,  292;  Prof.  James, 
292;  Chas.  Eliot  Norton,  292; 
Frederic  Myers,  292-3;  Dr.  Hys- 
lop,  293;  alleged  fraud  not  appa¬ 
rent,  293-4;  early  phases  of  case 
of,  295-9;  Prof.  James  investigates. 


INDEX 


367 


295- 6;  Dr.  Hodgson  investigates, 

296- 7;  “Phinuit”  control,  298-9; 
investigated  in  England,  299-304; 
efforts  to  obviate  fraud,  299-301 ; 
unsatisfactory  sittings,  301 ;  re¬ 
markable  message  for  Mrs.  Lodge, 
302-3;  successful  sittings  with 
Miss  Goodrich-Freer,  303;  Dr. 
Hodgson  investigates  again,  303- 
4;  appearance  of  “Pelham”  con¬ 
trol,  304-7;  Pelham  displaced  by 
“Imperator”  controls,  307-9;  im¬ 
provement  in  communications, 
308;  Dr.  Hyslop  investigates,  309; 
examples  of  prophecy  with,  309-11; 
trivial  incidents  in  case  of,  319- 
20;  arguments  for  the  telepathic 
hypothesis,  324-6;  objections  to  the 
telepathic  hypothesis,  326-33;  phe¬ 
nomena  of,  telepathic,  328-9 

Planchet,  message  with,  154 
Plaster,  impressions  in,  see  Impres¬ 
sions  in  clay 

Podmore,  Frank,  warns  against  dog¬ 
matic  denial,  17;  endorses  Home, 
63;  Census  of  Hallucinations,  173; 
endorses  Mrs.  Piper,  294 
Poltergeist  phenomena  at  Naples 
sittings,  77;  spirits  not  necessary 
for,  116-19;  at  Naples,  106,  107-8 
Pomba,  at  first  Turin  sittings,  91 
Porro,  Dr.,  endorses  Eusapia,  80 
Possession  in  the  Bible,  345 
Possession,  see  also  “Watseka  Won¬ 
der,”  Automatism 
Precognition  observed  by  Dialecti¬ 
cal  Society,  29;  of  a  suicide,  168; 
of  a  telegram,  169-70;  examples 
of  in  Piper  case,  309-11;  in  the 
Bible,  345 

Precognition,  see  also  Premonitions 
Prejudices,  we  deal  only  with 
(Lang),  250 

Premonitions,  252-7;  examples  of, 
252-4;  remarkable  Wyman  case, 
254-S;  what  are  premonitions?  256- 
7;  telepathic  theory,  256;  theory 
of  hyperesthesia,  256-7;  theory  of 
“spirits,”  257 


Premonitions,  see  also  Precognition 
Premonitory  apparitions,  183-4 
Prestidigitation,  often  deceives,  16; 
testimony  of,  24;  an  inadequate 
explanation,  25 
Prevision,  definition,  7 
Prevision,  see  also  Precognition 
Professional  phenomena,  fraudu¬ 
lent,  14-19 

Prophecy,  see  Precognition 
Psychic  force,  registered  on  dy¬ 
namometer,  13;  Crookes’  idea  of, 
22;  Dialectical  Society  assured  of 
existence  of,  32;  Faraday’s  meas¬ 
urement  of,  52;  Jastrow’s  conclu¬ 
sions  regarding,  52-3;  Carrington’s 
conclusions  regarding,  53;  Thury’s 
theory  regarding,  53-4;  Flam- 
marion’s  study  of,  55-6;  role  of, 
little  understood,  57;  does  not 
seem  to  be  from  the  dead,  58; 
genuine  existence  of,  60;  is  it 
radio-activity?  111-12;  reality  of, 
200;  character  of  unknown  (Max¬ 
well),  260 

Psychic  phenomena,  inadequately 
observed,  10;  professional  all 
fraudulent,  14-19;  some  genuine, 
18;  not  explained  by  prestidigi¬ 
tation,  25-7;  science  should  in¬ 
vestigate,  251;  not  trivial,  289; 
have  been  contemptuously  disre¬ 
garded,  312;  intolerance  of  science 
regarding,  inexcusable,  314;  telep¬ 
athy  not  a  proved  explanation  for, 
323-4 

Psychic  phenomena,  see  also  Psy¬ 
chical  Research 

Psychic  problem  as  yet  far  from 
settled,  351 

Psychical  research,  definition,  6; 
neglected  by  science,  19;  future 
methods  of  work,  148;  great  recent 
progress  in,  199;  the  only  thing 
proving  the  future  life,  223;  very 
old  subject  (Maxwell),  258;  a  good 
beginning  has  been  made,  258; 
future  of,  351-2 


368 


INDEX 


Psychical  research,  see  also  Spirit¬ 
ualism 

Psychode,  Thury’s  psychic  force, 
53-4 

Psychology  and  psychical  research, 
19 

Pulse,  changes  in,  in  trance,  150 

R 

R.,  Major-General,  case  of,  162-3 

R.,  Miss,  percipient  in  telepathic 
experiment,  237 

Radio-activity,  is  psychic  energy? 
111-12 

Rappings,  observed  by  Crookes,  11; 
observed  by  Dialectical  Society, 
27;  genuine?  43-7;  Kate  Fox’s  con¬ 
fession  of  fraud,  43;  retraction  of 
confession,  43;  Crookes’  remarks 
on,  43-4;  are  peculiar  to  the  Fox 
sisters,  40-3;  discovery  of  their 
power,  40-1;  spread  of  rappings, 
4J-3;  are  different  with  each  me¬ 
dium,  44-5;  appear  unexpectedly, 
45;  musical  rappings,  45;  in  a 
bronze  vase  of  water,  46;  transmit 
messages,  46 

"Rector,”  control,  285;  335-6 

Reid,  definition  of  the  self,  129 

Restaurants,  rappings  in,  45 

Revelations  of  a  Spirit  Medium, 
quoted,  17 

Reynolds,  Mary,  case  of,  134 

Richet,  Charles,  a  convert  to  spirit¬ 
ualism,  4;  at  Milan  sittings,  78; 
tests  Eusapia  anew,  81 ;  tests  Eu- 
sapia  with  S.  P.  R.,  82;  quotes 
case  of  precognition,  169-70;  sur¬ 
vival  is  improbable,  198;  proofs 
of  survival  weak,  198;  great  re¬ 
cent  progress  in  psychical  re¬ 
search,  199;  scientific  courage  of 
Crookes,  199;  reality  of  psychic 
force,  200;  science  the  only  solu¬ 
tion,  200;  endorses  Mrs.  Piper, 
294 

Rigidity  in  trance  state,  149 

Rings,  slipped  over  table  leg  larger, 
38 


Roasenda,  Dr.  Joseph,  at  first  Turin 
seances,  91 

Rochester,  Fox  sisters  visit,  41 
Roff,  Mary,  alleged  to  possess 
Raney  Vennum,  140-6;  a  hysteric, 
145;  addicted  to  excessive  blood¬ 
letting,  145;  remarkable  clairvoy¬ 
ance  of,  145-6 

Romanes,  Dr.  Geo.  J.,  apparition 
seen  by,  183 

Roses,  spirit,  around  a  sitter,  303 
Rostain,  Chevalier,  at  second  Turin 
seances,  96 

Rules  for  mediumistic  experiments, 
272 

s 

St.  Petersburg,  incident  with  Eu¬ 
sapia  at,  74 

"Sally,”  see  Beauchamp,  Miss,  case 
of 

Salpetriere,  patients  of  the,  329 
Sardou  investigates  psychic  phe¬ 
nomena,  99 

Savage,  Dr.  Minot  J.,  clairvoyant 
incident,  155;  apparitions  of  the 
living  are  proved,  183;  telepathic 
analogy  of,  225;  reason  for  medi¬ 
ums,  262;  early  seances  of  Mrs. 
Piper,  281-2 

Sayles,  Ira,  ghost  seen  by,  191 
Scales  register  levitation,  13 
Scar,  Eusapia’s,  73;  luminosity 
around,  hi 

Scarpa,  Dr.,  at  Naples  seances,  104 
Scheibner,  observed  Zollner  phe¬ 
nomena,  38;  partially  blind,  39 
Schiaparelli  at  Milan  sittings,  78 
Science,  psychical  research  neg¬ 
lected  by,  19;  attitude  of,  toward 
table-tipping,  54;  the  only  solu¬ 
tion  of  the  psychic  problem,  200; 
cannot  impose  her  conditions 
(Wallace),  222;  should  investigate 
psychic  phenomena,  251;  intoler¬ 
ance  of,  inexcusable,  314;  has  fos¬ 
tered  materialism,  343-4;  has  made 
future  life  seem  doubtful,  344-5; 
to  the  rescue  of  the  Bible,  346-7 


INDEX  369 


Scoffing,  and  table-tipping,  52 
Screen,  broken,  Zollner’s  incident 
of,  39-40;  explained  by  Carring¬ 
ton,  40 

Sealed  slates,  reading,  35-7 
Seance-room,  coldness  of,  registers 
on  thermometer,  13;  mental  effect 
of,  20;  darkness  in,  why  necessary, 
59;  cold  breeze  in,  92;  medium- 
istic  chain  in,  broken,  105 
Secondary  personality,  influence  of, 
excluded,  273;  in  Piper  case?  328-9 
Secretions,  hypnotic  control  of  the, 
166 

Selectiveness,  necessity  of  power  of, 
in  telepathic  hypothesis,  327 
Self,  old  definition  of  the,  129;  dif¬ 
ficulties  of,  130 
Self,  see  also  Subliminal  self 
Self-hypnotization,  improbability  of, 
12 

Self-projection,  definition,  7;  possi¬ 
bility  of,  113;  126;  184-7;  case  of 
Mr.  Kirk,  184-5;  case  of  the  Misses 
Verity,  185-6;  man’s  astral  body 
travels  many  miles,  186 
Sensation,  within  narrow  limits, 
125-6 

Senses  of  “spirits,”  not  ours,  347 
Sensibility,  externalization  of,  with 
Eusapia,  113 

Sensitiveness,  to  light,  in  trance, 
150;  increased,  in  trance,  150 
Seybert  Commission,  33 
Shaker  Bridge,  scene  of  Huse  case, 
158-61 

Sidgwick,  Mrs.,  endorses  Mrs. 
Piper,  294;  note  by  on  haunting, 
209 

Sidgwick,  Prof.,  founder  of  S.  P. 
R.,  5;  Census  of  Hallucinations, 
173;  experiments  with  telepathy, 
244 

Siemiradski  tests  Eusapia,  8t 
Signals,  messages  by,  28;  rappings 
in,  46-7 

Singsaas,  Norway,  home  of  John 
Flottum,  156 


Size,  changes  in.  In  a  materialized 
head,  94 

Skeptic  pinned  to  wall  by  table,  26 

Skepticism,  dangers  of,  3 

Skirving,  Mr.,  case  of  premonition, 
252 

Slade,  endorsed  by  Bellachini,  25; 
investigated  by  Seybert  Commis¬ 
sion,  33;  Zollner  phenomena,  37- 
40 

Slate-writing,  wholesale  fraud  in, 
32-3;  definition,  33;  Seybert  Com¬ 
mission  investigates,  33;  fraudu¬ 
lent  methods,  33-7;  with  mucilage 
pencils,  34;  with  double  slates, 
34-5;  with  trick  flaps,  35;  with 
magnet,  35-7;  with  dummy  book, 
35;  difficulty  of  detecting  fraudu¬ 
lent,  37;  with  Zollner,  38 

Sleight-of-hand,  see  Prestidigitation 

Smith,  Mile.,  medium,  269;  continu¬ 
ance  of  personalities  in  case  of, 
334-5 

Smoked  paper,  astral  handprints  on, 

78 

Society  for  Psychical  Research,  aim 
of,  4;  proves  professional  medium- 
ship  fraudulent,  15;  what  it  has 
accomplished,  60;  exposes  Eusa¬ 
pia,  82-4;  takes  a  Census  of  Hal¬ 
lucinations,  173;  investigation  of 
telepathy,  226-7;  description  of 
facts  proved  by  the,  147;  (a)  sur¬ 
vival  of  soul,  147;  (b)  existence 
of  subliminal  self,  147-8;  (c)  reali¬ 
ty  of  telepathy,  etc.,  148;  telepath¬ 
ic  experiments,  234-7;  investi¬ 
gates  Mrs.  Piper,  296-7;  investi¬ 
gates  Mrs.  Piper  in  England,  299- 
3°4 

Soldier,  spirit  of,  identifies  himself, 
317 

Soul  is  in  process  of  reincarnation 
(Maxwell),  258 

Soul,  see  also  Future  life;  Dead, 
the;  Subliminal  self 

Speer,  Dr.  Stanhope  T.,  quotes  case 
of  materialization,  213 


370 


INDEX 


“Spirit”  photography,  see  Photo¬ 
graphs  of  spirits 

Spiritistic  hypothesis,  automatic 
writing,  323-4;  further  arguments 
for,  33 1 ;  caution  of  spiritists, 
331-2;  argument  from  “dramatic 
play  of  personality,”  332-40;  con¬ 
tinuance  of  incidents  from  sitting 
to  sitting,  333-5;  interference  be¬ 
tween  controls,  335-6;  character  of 
mistakes  and  confusion,  337-8; 
convincing  message  in  favor  of, 
33S-9;  argument  from  change  in 
communicators,  339-40;  compared 
with  telepathic  hypothesis,  340 
“Spirits”  surround  us  in  the  air, 
99;  repudiate  obscenity,  121-2;  tell 
of  distant  events,  155;  give  premo¬ 
nitions?  257;  how  would  they  com¬ 
municate?  261-2;  subliminal  self  in 
harmony  with,  264;  from  Mars, 
269;  two,  struggle  for  control,  271; 
have  they  our  memories  and 
senses?  347 

Spirits,  see  also  Discarnate  spirits 
Spiritualism,  proved,  4;  proves  fu¬ 
ture  life,  6;  founding  of,  41;  early 
spread  of,  42-3;  present  wave  of, 
259;  vs.  telepathy,  315-40;  caution 
necessary  in,  332 

Spiritualism,  see  also  Psychical  Re¬ 
search 

Statuette,  telekinesis  of,  26 
Stead,  William  T.,  investigates 
psychic  phenomena,  99;  believes 
in  future  life,  171;  communica¬ 
tion  with  dead  possible,  171;  hears 
from  a  dead  friend,  172;  letters 
from  Julia,  318-19 
Stewart,  Prof.  Balfour,  president  of 
S.  P.  R.,  5;  experiments  with 
telepathy,  245 
Stigmatization,  166 
Storie,  case  of  clairvoyance,  161;  an 
apparition  at  death,  191 
Struggle  with  a  materialization,  92-3 
Stubbornness  of  tables,  51 
Subconscious  self,  see  Subliminal 
self 


Subliminal  self,  hypothesis  of,  127- 
33;  iceberg  figure  of,  133;  exist¬ 
ence  of,  proved  by  S.  P.  R.,  147- 
8;  and  hypnotism,  164-5;  is  telepa¬ 
thy  a  power  of?  248-9;  relation  to 
mediumship,  264;  existence  of 
proved  (James),  312-13;  instances 
of  warning  by  the,  313-14;  imi¬ 
tative  powers  of,  320;  messages 
from,  322-3;  messages  come  from, 
331-2;  does  it  imitate  change  in 
communicators?  339-40 

Suggestion,  telepathic,  245-8;  case  of 
Mme.  B.,  246-7;  anesthesia  induced 
telepathically,  247-8 

Suicide,  precognition  of  a,  168 

Sully-Prudhomme  endorses  Eusapia, 
79 

Supernatural,  definition  of  the,  124- 
5;  scientific  attitude  changing  to¬ 
ward,  126 

Supernormal  knowledge  in  medium- 
istic  communications,  279-82;  in¬ 
stances  of,  295-6;  302-3;  actions  ob¬ 
served  at  a  distance,  306-7;  pre¬ 
cognition  in  Piper  case,  309-11 

Survival  after  death,  see  Future 
life 

Swedenborg,  case  of  automatism, 
271 

Synchronism  noticed  with  Eusapia, 
”3-15 

Syracuse,  spread  of  spiritualism  to, 
42 

T 

Table,  levitation  of,  with  Crookes, 
11 ;  pins  skeptic  to  wall,  25;  rings 
slipped  over  leg  of  larger,  38; 
miraculous  disappearance  of,  40; 
levitation,  remarkable,  90;  breaks 
itself  to  pieces,  97;  weight  of 
added  to  mediums,  122;  trick,  for 
“mind-reading,”  230-1;  levitated  at 
Naples  sittings,  76-7;  photographs 
of  levitated,  78;  levitated  at  Genoa 
sittings,  86-7 

Table-tipping,  observed  by  Dialecti¬ 
cal  Society,  31;  phenomena  of. 


INDEX 


871 


47-54;  definition  of,  47;  existence 
of  incontestable,  48-9;  Carrington, 
Flammarion,  Marvin,  Barrett, 
Crookes,  quoted  affirmatively,  48-9; 
conclusive  experiment  of  Dialecti¬ 
cal  Society,  49;  why  tables?  50; 
complete  levitation,  50;  researches 
of  De  Gasparin  on,  51;  tests  with 
flour,  51 ;  occasional  stubborn¬ 
ness  in,  51;  with  Eusapia,  51;  not 
essential  to  proof  of  future  life, 
52;  explanation  of,  52-3;  Jastrow’s 
experiments,  52-3;  Thury’s  theory, 
53-4;  present  attitude  of  science 
regarding,  54 

Tamlin,  Mrs.,  medium,  42 
Tastes,  telepathic  sending  of,  242-3 
Telegram,  precognition  of  a,  16970 
Telegraphy,  spirit,  13-14 
Telekinesis,  definition,  7;  of  heavy 
bodies,  11;  of  a  pendulum,  26;  of 
a  statuette,  27;  observed  by  Dia¬ 
lectical  Society,  28;  examples  of, 
31;  of  heavy  bodies,  48-50;  true 
(Wallace),  221 

Telekinesis,  see  also  Table-tipping, 
Levitation,  Apports 
Telepathic  hypothesis,  arguments 
for,  324-6;  objections  to,  326-33; 
compared  with  spiritistic  hypothe¬ 
sis,  340 

Telepathy,  reality  of,  proved,  5;  defi¬ 
nition,  7;  proved  by  S.  P.  R.,  148; 
224-249;  now  an  established  fact, 
224;  Lodge  endorses  truth  of,  224; 
Hyslop  endorses,  224-5;  analogy  of 
Dr.  Savage,  225 ;  evidence  for 
ecstasy,  225;  a  first  step,  225-6; 
proved  by  S.  P.  It.,  226-7;  fraudu¬ 
lent,  227-32;  “mind-reading,"  227-8; 
methods,  228-31;  muscle-reading, 
231-2;  we  know  little  about,  232; 
spontaneous,  232-3;  example  of, 
233;  experiments  of  S.  P.  R.,  234-7; 
percipient  in,  234;  can  any  one  be 
a  percipient?  235-6;  agents  in, 

236- 7;  proof  of,  237-45;  objects, 

237- 8;  drawings,  239-42;  of  double 
impression,  240-2;  of  tastes,  242-3; 


mathematical  proof  of,  243-5;  tele¬ 
pathic  hypnosis  and  suggestion, 
245-8;  anesthesia  induced  tele- 
pathically,  247-8;  wonderful  en¬ 
largement  of,  248;  what  is  telepa¬ 
thy?  248-9;  premonitions,  252-4; 
remarkable  Wyman  case,  254-5; 
telepathic  theory  of  premonitions, 
256;  vs.  spiritualism,  315-40;  hy¬ 
pothesis  of,  in  Piper  case,  320; 
enlargement  of  conception  of, 
321-2;  delayed  percipience,  321; 
multiple  telepathy,  321-2;  not  a 
proved  explanation  for  all  psychic 
phenomena,  323-4 
Test  sentence  from  spirits,  279-82 
Tests  given  by  “George  Pelham," 
306-7;  for  spirit  messages,  315-16; 
sealed  letter,  316 
“Theophilus,”  control,  285. 
Theosophical  Society,  14 
Thermometer,  registers  psychic 
coldness,  13 

Thomson,  Sir  Wm.,  quoted,  19 
Thoulet,  Prof.,  case  of  precognition, 
169-70 

Threshold  of  consciousness,  131 
Thury,  psychic  force  theory  of,  53-4 
Titus,  Mrs.,  clairvoyant  medium, 
158-61 

Tolstoi,  Count,  our  life  is  a  dream, 
341;  death  a  sure  and  happy 
awakening,  342 
Torpor,  trance  state,  151 
Train-wreck,  life  saved  in,  by  pre¬ 
monition,  252;  prevented  by  pre¬ 
monition,  254-5 

Trance,  morbid  phenomena  of,  un¬ 
necessary,  151;  Mrs.  Piper’s,  293 
Trance-speaking,  observed  by  Dia¬ 
lectical  Society,  29 
Trance  state,  description  of,  149-51 
Transvaal,  ghost  of  officer  in,  189-91 
Trivial  things,  surest  proof  of 
identity  is  in,  318;  examples  of, 
319-20;  strong  proof  in,  when  re¬ 
membered,  325-6 

Turin,  first  seances  at,  91-5;  second 
seances  at,  95-8 


372 


INDEX 


U 

Unconscious  mental  action,  influ¬ 
ence  of,  excluded,  273 

Unconscious  muscular  action,  an 
explanation  of  table-tipping,  52 

V 

Varley,  on  Dialectical  Society  Com¬ 
mittee,  27 

Vase,  rappings  in  a,  46 

Venice,  incident  of  a  seance  at,  121 

Vennum,  Raney,  see  “Watseka 
Wonder” 

Venzano,  at  Genoa  sittings,  86 

Verdun,  Count,  at  second  Turin 
seances,  96 

Veridical  after-images,  204 

Verity,  self-projection  case  of  the 
Misses,  185-6 

Vibrations,  all  force  composed  of, 
123-5;  body  composed  of,  126 

Violation  of  a  grave,  related  clair- 
voyantly,  155-6 

Visions  in  crystals,  see  Crystal  gaz¬ 
ing 

Vizioli,  Prof.,  at  first  Naples  sit¬ 
tings,  76 

Voices  in  the  air,  29;  carried  many 
miles,  161-3 

Von  Schrenck-Notzing,  tests  Eusa- 
pia,  81 

w 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  accepts 
spiritualism,  3;  facts  of  spiritual¬ 
ism  incontestable,  17;  Dialectical 
Society  Committee,  27;  cases  of 
animals  seeing  apparitions,  207-11; 
note  on  cases  of  apparitions,  210- 
11 ;  the  dead  are  “alive”  still,  221; 
happiness  of  future  life,  221;  tele¬ 
kinesis,  apports,  levitation,  221-2; 


chemical  phenomena,  222;  fraud 
does  not  explain,  222;  science  can¬ 
not  impose  her  conditions,  222; 
laws  of  evidence,  222-3;  psychic 
research  only  thing  proving  future 
life,  223;  an  extreme  spiritualist, 
332 

Water,  rappings  in  a  vase  of,  46 

“Watseka  Wonder,”  case  of  the, 
140-6;  tests  made  with,  143;  earlier 
controls  of  the,  144;  later  life  of, 
144;  doubts  cast  on  story  of,  144-5 

Weber,  observed  Zollner  phenom¬ 
ena,  38;  an  incompetent  witness, 
39 

Weight,  of  medium,  increases  dur¬ 
ing  levitation,  122 

Wills,  Rev.  J.  T.,  spirit  photog¬ 
raphy,  180-1 

Wreck,  life  saved  in,  by  premoni¬ 
tion,  252-3;  prevented  by  premo¬ 
nition,  254-5 

Writing,  message  by  direct,  262-3 

Wyllie,  Edmund,  photographing 
medium,  180-1 

Wyman,  Wm.  H.,  remarkable  case 
of  premonition,  254-5 

Wynne,  Captain,  levitations  with 
Home,  66-7 

X 

X.,  Miss,  medium,  279-80 

X.,  Felida,  case  of,  135 

z 

Z.,  Dr.,  “spirit’*  physician,  278-9 

Zollner  phenomena,  probably  fraud¬ 
ulent,  38;  character  of,  38;  reasons 
against,  38-9;  criticism  of  rope- 
tying,  39;  broken  screen  incident, 
39-40;  miraculous  disappearance  of 
table,  40 


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LIBRARY 


DURHAM,  NORTH  CAROLINA 
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